Ƨyнeɯ Вокально-Инструментальньıй Ансамбль

Ƨyнeɯ Вокально-Инструментальньıй Ансамбль

June 24, 2008, 8:14 pm
Filed under: Turkmenistan

♬Невестки

♬Девушка

Ƨyнeɯ Вокально–Инструментальньıй Ансамбль, or Gunesh Vocal Ensemble Instrumental Experience, were from Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan (also known as Turkmenia) is a Turkic country in Central Asia. The name Turkmenistan is derived from Persian, meaning “land of the Turkmen“. Its capital is Ashgabat derived from Persian, as well, loosely translates as “the city of love.”. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the southwest, Uzbekistan to the northeast, Kazakhstan to the northwest, and the Caspian Sea to the west. Eighty-seven percent of the population is Muslim.

Russia gained control of Turkmenistan in 1894, and incorporated it into its empire. Then after the October Revolution of 1917 in Russia and subsequent political unrest led to the declaration of the area as the Turkmen SSR, one of the six republics of the Soviet Union in 1924, assuming the borders of modern Turkmenistan.

The new Turkmen SSR went through a process of further ‘Europeanization’. The tribal Turkmen people were encouraged to become secular and adopt European-style clothing. The Turkmen alphabet was changed from the traditional Arabic script to Latin and finally to Cyrillic.

Gunesh formed in 1970 as part of State TV and Radio Company of the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic as a “vocal group with supporting instruments”.

According to their website, “The group began to play jazz-rock tightly intertwined with the Oriental tradition. Gunesh’ has always been in the process of reforming and was one of the first combine the similar principles of the melodious improvisation on traditional mugams and jazz improvisation. The unexpectedly beautiful arrangements appeared, and polyrhythmic compositions with odd measure were further developed thematically.”

From the best that I can tell, they relocated to Tbilisi, Georgia in the late Seventies or early Eighties. They recorded two albums, their debut was released in 1980 and the second “Looking at the Earth” in 1984. They toured extensively in the Eastern Bloc, as well as Afghanistan, Cape Verde, China, Guinea-Bissau, Laos, Mongolia, Mozambique, Senegal, Turkey and Vietnam. These two songs are from a flexi disc (one of two they were split with ABBA on the other side) that were released before their first album.

I e-mailed Stanislav Morozov thru his website, but he did not respond.

Catalog number Г 62-07335-6 TУ 43-03-48-73 on the Soviet state-owned and operated Μелодия (Melodiya) label. No release date listed.

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