04/05/2025
CCD09: Mamer 马木尔 - Awlaⱪta / Afar 离
https://dustyballz.bandcamp.com/album/awla-ta-afar
In mid-December 2021, Mamer flew from Ürümqi to Shenzhen to play a few booked gigs. Afterwards, he decided to stay on for a marathon music residency at the Old Heaven bookstore. From Dec 13 to 27, Mamer performed 14 concerts in 15 days, unreservedly presenting his vast creative world to a small but dedicated audience, who followed him throughout this journey. These performances were announced on each day with a theme decided often last minute, free admission offered. They were intended to be intimate and spontaneous, or in Mamer’s own word, “rehearsals”.
Most of these “rehearsals” were sonically challenging, to say the very least. Years had passed since Peter Gabriel’s Real World Records released the album Eagle, which Mamer is still best known for in the Western world. Yet, among the listeners who followed him through the most recent decade, even the most nostalgic ones had come to the realisation that Mamer had left his “world music” identity long behind. The performances at Old Heaven showcased Mamer’s dialogues with a wild range of eccentric musical traditions, including industrial rock, heavy psychedelia, sample-based electronics, drone, and harsh noise. The Kazakh folk tradition, which predominantly defined the early works of Mamer and his band Iz, was most of the time barely discernible.
On the fifth night, however, the audience found Mamer sitting alone with a nylon string guitar, delivering what would become one of his quietest public performances of the past decade. The night started gently with a reinterpretation of “Love”, a 90s ballad by Kazakhstani rock group Roksonaki, and it went on placidly, releasing into the air melodies from both folk songs and pieces originally composed for traditional Kazakh instruments. The setlist spans across centuries. Among others, it includes a dombra kui written by Ashim Dungshiuly, early 20th century master from Ili, and an ancient piece for sıbızğı (a sideblown flute) believed to be composed by Korkut Ata, the great hero in Turkic mythology.
For Mamer, this is a songbook of memories. These tunes were once heard repeatedly on the radio during his youthful days in Xinjiang, and they all came back to him on this quiet winter night. The nylon guitar calmly inhaled in his hands, breathing out cold, whirling melodic currents, trailing around and round through personal and collective histories.
In Kazakh language, “awlaⱪ” is a root word that denotes the state of being “off”, signifying an existence from afar and away. The word “awlaⱪta”, which Mamer uses to title one of his original compositions performed that night, literally means “outside” or “elsewhere”. In a more subtle sense, “awlaⱪta” implies a condition of sustained liminality, a voluntary exile of being a stranger in a strange land. This condition is one that has to do with the will to departure, the longing for a different place, and an utter resistance to the ease of belonging. For Mamer, it serves duly as an artist statement, but that night, the solitary drifter re-encountered home.
Still Mamer refused to go gentle into the good night. After the last song, he grabbed an unused guitar pickup from the ground, and pressed it to his throat. With intense pitch shifting on the effect pedals, he summoned a long, ghostly howl, piercing through the tranquillity in the atmosphere. Amid resounding echoes, Mamer walked off the stage, on towards the next night.
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2021年末，马木尔在深圳旧天堂书店进行了一轮漫长的马拉松式驻演。这一系列演出以“排练”为名，临时策划，就地取材，风格涉及工业摇滚、重型迷幻、采样拼贴、嗡鸣，乃至硬件噪音。大多数的时间，贯穿IZ乐队早期生涯的哈萨克民乐传统几不可辨。这次“排练”最终持续了十四个夜晚，不论台上台下，都是一场拙诚的音乐苦行。
《离》记录了这个系列中的第五场，共收录六首曲目。当晚，马木尔怀抱一把尼龙弦吉他，几乎纯以清音弹奏哈萨克民族旋律。这些曲调的来历跨越数百年，既有现代歌曲，也有世代流传的民间歌谣和古老器乐曲。在马木尔少年时，这些曲目大多曾在新疆本地的电台广播中反复播放。某种意义上，它们是马木尔记忆中的乡谣。
这是马木尔近年最为安静的公开演奏之一。在他手中，吉他仿佛是广阔的容器，吞吐着来自不同时代、为不同乐器谱写的音符。这些旋律交织成凛冽的环流，旷旷荡荡，拨开了另一方天地，声随长夜，心驰古原。
在哈萨克语中，作为词根的 “awlaⱪ” 表示“外”，进而取遥远、隔绝、疏离之意。“Awlaⱪta” 在字面意义上即为“在外”，既可以标示“在远处”的方位，也可以指向一种“在别处”的悬置时态，是身即此地已意在他方，是对于归属本身的决绝的背离。在马木尔的音乐中，离去与归来正如一对形影相随的二律背反。这个安静的夜晚，“离”是自我放逐，更是远行者的温柔回望，是迁徙的人偶然勒马，四顾无着，竟见故乡。
但马木尔拒绝走入良夜温柔。弹奏完最后一曲，他拾起地上备用的吉他拾音器，按在喉头，用剧烈的调变召唤出鬼魅般的尖啸，亲手撕碎那一夜的宁谧。呼啸声中，马木尔起身上路，迈向下一个夜晚。
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录制于深圳旧天堂书店，2021年12月17日
Recorded at Old Heaven Books, Shenzhen, December 17, 2021
马木尔：吉他、人声、效果器
Mamer: guitar, vocal, and effects
哈萨克语翻译：唐加力克
Translation from Kazakh by Karatorhay
录音：罗绿野、吴盛
Recorded by Maza Luo, Wu Sheng
母带处理：刘英
Mastered by Liu Ying
木刻：张咏瑜
Woodcut by Zhang Yongyu
感谢：周12
Thanks to ZhouYi
