UUTAi - "Live Jew's Harp" [2013]

Artist: UUTAi

Title: Live Jew's Harp

Genre: Folk, New Age

Country: Russia (Yakutia)

Release date: 2013

Track List:

1. Silence Breath
2. Sky Songs
3. Races
4. Water Games
5. The Lunar Shaman
6. Legend About Ancient Fights
7. Races (Strana 03 rmx)

After posting Lovozero on here, I thought it'd wouldn't hurt to post Uutai too. Uutai plays Yakutian khomus, an instrument which for some unknown reason is commonly called "Jew's harp" in English, although it doesn't have anything to do with Jews and traditional Jewish music. There's some confusion about her real name: according to the cover art of this album, it's Olga Podluzhnaya; however, Uutai refers to herself as Olena (an Ukrainian name, although Uutai says she doesn't have Ukrainian roots and doesn't know the language). Anyway, she's a very talented musician whose music certainly should be recorded to anyone who's into Siberian shamanic folk (like the solo works of Veronika Oshulik).

Uutai became widely known after the video of one of her performances ("Siberian shaman lady") went viral on Youtube, and it's well deserved - her performance was amazing, and her vocal abilites (including the ability to imitate animal sounds) are great. Funny enough, a lot of people in the comments say that she has very beautiful armpits - that'd be one of the most original compliments I've heard of :)

After the success of this video, she performed at a lot of shows in various countries, but in come cases her music wasn't met well (understandable, because her style is too weird and exotic for an unexperienced listener). However, her performance on Britain's Got Talent apparently was quite successful: