It would seem that the multi-tiered layers of voice conjured by throat singers would be a natural choice for a yoga [0] class, but given the surrounding instrumentation, including the plucked and fiddled string instruments and shaman’s drum of Siberia, the music of Tuva is a tough call for the studio. Give the style a new context to move around within, as Carmen Rizzo [1] has done with Huun Huur Tu [2], and you’ve acquired some of the most meditative, hypnotic sounds around.

While Huun Huur Tu is known as one of the foremost purveyors of this unique music from the tundra of Asia and Russia, having collaborated with artists like the Kronos Quartet, Frank Zappa, and Ry Cooder, they have never hit a large audience in America with their polyphonic spree. Executive producers Vladimir Oboronko and Mark Governor asked Rizzo, who has worked with Niyaz, Lal Meri, Seal, Paul Okenfold, and Jem, to mix their new record, cut at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, and Rizzo took the bold step of stating "in my opinion it needed a lot more than mixing." He wasn't being facetious—he knew the band had the world music crowd locked down. He wanted to "attract the yoga crowd, the Whole Foods crowd, the KCRW and NPR crowds. I wasn't convinced that that audience was ready to hear a pure throat singing record. Hopefully they're going to find a new audience with this album."

Eternal, released in North America on Rizzo’s own Electrofone Music [3], is a phenomenal album, something I've personally been waiting for since I first heard this band nearly ten years ago: throat singing tempered by electronica. Don't think four-on-the-floor dance cuts; instead, envision powerful and tasteful low-end, percussively intelligent, moving and sweeping in the landscape while strings and voices grace the surface. There is something inspired in their vocals; with traditional instrumentation, it is an extremely powerful live experience. I've just never heard anything that captures the style so well on record. You're not going to hear throat singing turning on whatever radio stations still exist, which is part of the reason Rizzo launched the album from his own label.

There is a strong possibility of that, from my perspective. I've been spinning tracks from Eternal in my yoga classes over the past few weeks, and a number of people have approached me after class singling out their tracks. One even asked me if “Dogee Mountain” was from the Crouching Tiger soundtrack, surprised when I replied in the negative. As it is, I don't believe in such a thing as "yoga music"; it's more about finding and sequencing music that fits the mood, and Rizzo nailed it for the structure of a class. Yet there is so much more to these eight songs than scoring a movement class, albeit meditative as some of the songs are. The album is dynamic and graceful in a way that Tuvan music has yet to be presented.

"What I did not want to do was a remix record,” Rizzo says. “It would have been too easy to pick apart what they did and make some sort of coffee table remix album. That would have been disrespectful. I really wanted it to become collaborative. It naturally evolved to that."

The challenge was one that defied time, literally: the Tuvans did not use a click track, so their sense of time and tone proved extremely different to a Western ear. (This is partly why this form of music challenges the American listener, much like Gamelan drumming and Chinese opera.) Performing "surgery" on a number of tracks, Dr. Rizzo retuned and retimed to his heart's content. While this might be a generic statement, it is nowhere near false to say this is unlike anything you've ever heard. The parts are all recognizable, and you instantly feel a sympathetic connection to the creation, which adds to its beauty. Regardless of where or when you play Eternal, chances are you’ll be submerged in its gorgeous textures, introducing you to a style perhaps new yet innately familiar and enjoyable all the same.