Ulaan (Squama)
Enji
Released July 2023
Washington Post The Best Album of 2023
New York Times Best Jazz Albums of 2023
The Guardian The 10 Best Global Albums of 2023
HHV Mag Die 50 besten Alben des Jahres 2023
YouTube:
https://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lkiv2NlBa42Uxf2ztgPTY2NakcfzTYmtM
Spotify:
About:
Enji begins her third album with a stark reminder of her own humanity. “I am Ulaan,” she utters plainly in her native language of Mongolian, referring to a nickname affectionately given to her by her family. “I have to remember who I am,” she says, explaining her choice of a spoken monologue. “It empowers me.”
Throughout Ulaan, Enji continues to find new ways to bring out those affirming expressions of herself. Drawing on the elegant blend of jazz and traditional Mongolian song on her previous album Ursgal, she leans into her strengths while breaking into bold new directions. With trusted collaborators Paul Brändle on guitar and Munguntovch Tsolmonbayar on bass at her side once again, she expands the band to include Mariá Portugal on drums and Joana Queiroz on clarinet—and her creative process expands along with it. “They have such deep feelings and such deep love of music,” Enji says of the group. As a result of these new partnerships, the compositions have opened up, bringing in lusher textures, more rhythm, and more interplay between musicians. Enji pushes her voice to new heights, too, effervescently fluttering over each track and moving in perfect lockstep with her band.
Songs bubble up from spontaneous moments of inspiration. With “Zuud,” the imagery came to Enji in a melancholic dream. On “Uzegdel,” she evokes the feeling of a breathtaking view she saw from the window of an early Autumn flight on her way home to Mongolia. “Vogl” comes from her experience visiting the peaceful village of the same name, tracing the shape of the natural vista with her vocals. In some cases, she described these scenes to the band and worked out the feeling together. In others, the songs crystallized from reading out the lyrics. “I find my mother tongue in Mongolian is such a rhythmical language,” Enji explains. “So the melody just came out.”
As Enji continues her journey of self-discovery, she continues to grow and adapt into new roles. With Ulaan, she bares more of her heart than we’ve seen from her yet, but she’s still got more to give—as a vocalist, a bandleader, and most importantly, as a storyteller.
Shy Thompson
Track Listing:
1. Zuud (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 04:33
2. Taivshral (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 03:07
3. Duulnaa (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 03:02
4. Temeen Deerees Naran Oirhon (Adarsuren P. / Sergelen H. / Shagdar J.) 03:42
5. Vogl (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 04:20
6. Ulaan (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 03:30
7. Libelle (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 02:38
8. Picture / Three Shadows (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 05:21
9. Encanto (Joana Queiroz) 01:33
10. Uzegdel (Enkhjargal Erkhembayar / Paul Brändle) 04:25
Personnel:
Enkhjargal Erkhembayar: vocals
Joana Queiroz: clarinet, bass clarinet
Paul Brändle: guitar
Munguntovch Tsolmonbayar: bass
Mariá Portugal: drums
Matthias Lindermayr: trumpet (2)
Recorded by Jan Krause at Mastermix Studio
Mixed by Martin Brugger
Mastered and cut by Andreas “Lupo” Lubich
Produced by Martin Brugger
Creative Direction and Design by Maximilian Schachtner
Styling by Laura Fries and Carolin Schreck at FRECK
Supported by Initiative Musik gGmbH with project funds from the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and Media
Review:
Whenever people from disparate geographies come together to make new music, passive listeners tend to treat the results like mosaics or club sandwiches — assemblages made to dazzle and nourish us with the vague suggestion of a universal language that might eventually help our idiot species transcend its fractiousness. Enji’s music feels way deeper than that. No tiles, no tiers, no pseudo-kumbaya. She’s a Mongolian jazz singer recording bossa nova-hued ballads in Germany, but instead of coming together like global bric-a-brac, her songs mix like satin interior paint — vivid and smooth.
Her gorgeous third album, “Ulaan,” is extraordinary, a singular result of unique circumstances, but also modest, because isn’t everything that happens in this life a singular result of unique circumstances? Born Enkhjargal Erkhembayar in the Mongolian capital of Ulaanbaatar, Enji spent her childhood living in a yurt, raised by working parents who loved to sing. Fascinated with traditional folk melodies, she grew up to become a music teacher, until a jazz outreach program organized by the Goethe-Institut suddenly bent her path toward a recording career in Munich. Enji’s 2017 debut, “Mongolian Song,” featured jazz arrangements of traditional Mongolian music (plus some extra splash from legendary drummer Billy Hart), while her 2021 album, “Ursgal,” found the singer penning her own interior ballads under the influence of jazz standards. Now, with “Ulaan,” Enji has expanded her band (guitarist Paul Brändle, bassist Munguntovch Tsolmonbayar) to include two Brazilian players (drummer Mariá Portugal, clarinetist Joana Queiroz), and together, they seem to have found a place for the singer’s voice that didn’t previously exist.
It barely exists, though. The instrumentation on “Ulaan” feels so delicate, it’s often on the precipice of vanishing. Keep your ears focused and you’ll hear arrangements as practical as Enji’s singing, which even at its lullaby-softest, remains stealthily rhythmic and deeply cooperative. On “Duulnaa,” when she floats into a sequence of curlicue vowels with Queiroz’s clarinet twirling nearby, it’s like two puffs of smoke floating through one another. In “Picture/Three Shadows,” Brändle’s guitar converges with Enji and Queiroz so gently, it’s hard to know whether the instruments are supporting the voice or the voice is supporting the instruments. Instead of obeying a formal hierarchy, their music becomes a sort of liquid interdependency.
Don’t worry about losing yourself in the swirl. Across a neat 36-minutes, “Ulaan” conjures a sense of wonderment without ponderousness, sentimentality or melodrama. These songs sound so inventive, so free, yet so grounded — and if they end up calming your mind, the aim wasn’t to numb it, but to open it. It’s generous work, and it’s selfless, too. No one here ever sounds like they’re trying to draw attention to themselves. That responsibility falls to us. Share this music with people you like and listen to it with the people you love.
Chris Richards (The Washington Post)
