Launch event for L.M. Duplication release 'Mountains of Tongues: Musical Dialects of the Caucasus' with a special Caucasus inspired set by The Family Elan, rare performance by London based Georgian polyphonic choir Maspindzeli along with screening of footage from The Sayat Nova Projects video archives.

Because of its unique geography—situated at the borders of Europe and Asia, between the Caspian and Black seas—the Caucasus has been at the crossroads of multiple empires as well as home to an exceptionally diverse population, resulting in a rich mosaic of history, culture, religion and language. Early Arab travelers referred to the region as the “Mountains of Tongues,” a term that reflected both the geographic and linguistic variety. An incredible number of languages and traditions still exist, but many have yet to be thoroughly documented and are close to disappearing completely.



Mountains of Tongues: Musical Dialects from the Caucasus includes recordings of songs in languages that have rarely been caught on tape (Lezgi and Batsbi), instruments that only exist in extremely small numbers (the Tushetian chianuri, of which there are only two, and the agach komuz from the remote territory of Dagestan) and performances from a variety of underrepresented ethnic minority communities. The Sayat Nova Project is a non-profit group with the goal of preserving and promoting the musical dialects of the Caucasus. The recordings on this album were made between September 2012 and June 2013 in villages, towns and cities across the South Caucasus. Members of the project recorded more than 50 musicians playing a wide variety of instruments and singing in ten different languages. Mountains of Tongues presents the music of the Caucasus without regard to political borders. Through the inclusion of recordings by Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Georgians, Chechens and many others ethnicities, it represents this region’s unique traditions and shared histories and emphasize the diversity that exists within these “mountains of music.”

'The joy of Mountains of Tongues is that it leaves the ethnic, self-indentifying dimensions of these unfamiliar musical utterances intact, and the poetry still shines through' THE WIRE

www.sayatnovaproject.com
ahawkandahacksaw.net/

THE FAMILY ELAN

Active since 2007, is the musical brainchild of Greek bouzouki and Turkish baglama-saz player Chris Hladowski. Orbiting Bradford since birth Hladowski has taken his music with him for stints in Glasgow, Budapest and London, and tours across Europe and the USA, collaborating with groups as diverse as A Hawk and A Hacksaw, members of the seminal German ‘krautrock’ band Faust, Franz Ferdinand, and the Master Musicians of Joujouka. A rotating membership has recently seen him joined by Harry Wheeler on bass and Mark Hearne on percussion. Having collaborated with the Jaipur Kawa Brass Band for a successful and memorable concert in September 2012 the group continues to gain inspiration, and expand its horizons, through a process of cross-cultural musical fermentation that is both honest and well seasoned.

‘When Hladowski achieves instrumental levitation, the ghosts of Comus, Jan Dukes De Grey and The Incredible String Band might be hovering over his shoulder; there’s a similar sense of acid-spiked, dervish abandon. Like the latter, he references ethnic music - Indian ragas, Balkan gypsy dances, Greek rembetika - but with a rare feeling and finesse, and not a trace of whimsy.’ THE WIRE

www.thefamilyelan.com/

MASPINDZELI

Maspindzeli is a choir devoted to singing songs from the ancient polyphonic tradition of Georgia. It is led by Tamta Turmanidze.

The choir came about in 1999 in response to the growing interest in Georgian singing, which only became widely known in the west following Georgian independence in 1991, thanks to the work of leading Georgian teachers such as Joseph Jordania and the late Edisher Garakanidze. It was originally formed by Helen Chadwick, following Edisher's tragic death in a car crash in 1998, in order to raise money for his son Gigi Garakanidze.



The choir has studied with visiting Georgian teachers and choirs on many occasions, and has made a specific point of studying authentic styles of singing from various regions of Georgia. "Maspindzeli" means "host" in Georgian and the choir has sung for the London Georgian community on a number of occasions, and has six times been invited to Georgia as part of the biennial Polyphonic Symposium at the Tbilisi Conservatory of Music, most recently in September, 2012.

www.maspindzeli.org.uk