Cycle 循环 by Hugjiltu 胡格吉乐图

Hugjiltu plays the guitar with five strings. Not used to the standard chord-forms of Western guitar, he invented his own system of tuning, combining the three-string Mongolian lute and the two-string horsehead fiddle, both of which he started playing as a child. These five strings epitomise his relationship with the music from within the Mongolian ethnic tradition and with the music beyond, a state of artistic composure few in his generation have achieved.

Hailing from a musical family in Jarud Banner, Inner Mongolia, Hugjiltu came to be known as one of China’s most prolific world music veterans in the first fifteen years of his career. He toured extensively around the globe, first as a member of Hanggai and then as a leader of his own group, Ajinai. This success came with a growing bitterness towards the specific type of “Mongolian sound” his bands are habituated to playing, a sound constrained by the imagination of otherness from within the centre. Tired of performing an idealised, distant “world”, Hugjiltu opted to use his musical mother-tone to speak to the real world he lives in. After Ajinai disbanded, he shifted to a predominantly solo improvisational approach, questioning what it means to be of Mongolian descendant here and now.

Cycle was recorded in early 2020, all tracks are fully improvised except for “Reservoir”, which is based on a traditional Kazakh melody. Besides his specially tuned guitars, Hugjiltu employs a selection of traditional instruments: the Tsuur (Mongolian end-blown flute), the Morin Khuur (horsehead fiddle), and Khoomei (throat singing), backgrounding them with airy synth effects and field recordings. The album’s scene is set in a day in life, navigating through a series of urban and suburban spaces, which also guide the listener along Hugjiltu’s regular commute. The journey starts from Mount Elephant, a name playfully given by inhabitants of the “painters village” in the suburb of north Beiing, where Hugjiltu also lives, and heads towards the heart of the city, crossing the Deshengmen tower gate on the vibrant 2nd Ring Road; and yet the album does not give only a one-way ticket. The two sides of the tape are designed to play recurrently as the traveller shifts between the metropolis and the mountainside, and between a meditative subject who gazes internally and an unreserved spirit who reaches out to the wide social world.

This is the everyday story of an expatriate and wanderer, but also a person who finds peace in the rotating cycle that is life. For but one moment in time, the old tradition lays its burden down and breathes calmly. Listen.

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胡格吉乐图的吉他有五根弦。依照他自己发明的调弦法，其中的三根对应着蒙古三弦，另外两根则来自马头琴，这两样都是他自幼以来的家学润养。他弹不惯西洋吉他的音阶指法，而又寄望于它丰富的和声表达，这五根弦看似水到渠成，背后却有不可多得的机巧与从容。

作为一名勤勉多产的蒙古民乐多面手，胡格吉乐图在他音乐生涯的前十五年随杭盖与阿基耐乐队四方巡游，以世界音乐扬名世界，而来自中心的凝视也渐渐如芒在背。当“民族”的标签固化成一张新异而呆板的名片，胡格吉乐图不再想舒适地扮演一个想象中的他者，他渴望用自己的音乐母语与当下现实建立关联，这是他转向个人即兴的初衷。

《循环》录制于2020年初，除吉他外，还使用了胡笳（冒顿潮尔）、马头琴与人声呼麦。专辑皆为即兴演奏，《水库》一曲化用了一段哈萨克民间旋律。从静卧京郊的象山到车马倥偬的二环，整张专辑夹杂着山水声与烟火气，既有时日悠然流荡，也是地理空间中的信步游弋。上山下山，入城出城，磁带的AB两面之间并非线性的出发和抵达，而是清静与喧闹、入世与自观的往复折返。跳跃的弦音勾勒出氤氲的日常，胡笳一起，天地空阔；大“世界”与小世界涣若冰释，厚重的传统松一口气，在五指之间蓦然轻盈。

何谓现代，何谓民间？何谓文明，何谓自然？胡格吉乐图的答案是安然自洽的模棱两可，是作为一种生命状态的循环。

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Dusty Ballz is a London-based label that releases Chinese underground music on cassette tapes. The term originates in an old Soviet joke, which somehow still speaks to the situation today.

在历史悠久的长沙方言中，“蛋蛋沾灰”一词形容儿童玩伴之间亲密与共的珍贵情谊。Dusty Ballz致力于通过磁带介质呈现中国地下之声，在欣欣向荣的新常态下描画人类命运共同体的美好愿景。

dusty sound from the Chinese underground

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