- Courtesy the artist
- Nature Ganganbaigal of Tengger Cavalry
So many great Maryland Deathfest spillover tours pass through Chicago this week that the Reader couldn’t preview them all. (It’s the music section, not the metal section.) I wrote about Ufomammut and Anaal Nathrakh, but I didn’t manage to cover what I’m pretty sure is the first Chicago show by Czech grinders Lycanthropy or the bonkers avant-black-metal bill of Thantifaxath and Imperial Triumphant.
Ganganbaigal brought a morin khuur with him from China, holding it on his lap on the plane rather than entrust it to the tender mercies of airline baggage handlers. And he helps keep homesickness at bay with regular trips to Jamaica Bay to go horseback riding. Tengger Cavalry’s music often borrows the inexorable galloping rhythms of Mongolian folk music, which evolved alongside the people’s nomadic way of life—the vast open spaces and sparse human population of the central Asian steppes can mean you spend a lot of time on a horse. Ganganbaigal’s swirling, stately melodies draw from the same sources, evoking the bittersweet solitude of a lone rider, the sounds of the unceasing wind, and the merciless grandeur of the landscape.
Blood Sacrifice Shaman by Tengger Cavalry
