Anda Union aim to preserve and popularise Mongolian culture, and have an emotional, melodic style that has the same universal appeal as great Celtic music. The nine-piece band are from the Inner Mongolia region of northern China, but their atmospheric songs and instrumentals evoke the empty spaces of the Mongolian steppes. They play traditional instruments, including the morin hor horsehead fiddle, topshur lute and moadin choor flute, while their vocals mix solo and harmony work with carefully controlled bursts of growling and eerie-sounding throat singing. There are upbeat songs about horses, grasslands, folk heroes and history (Genghis Khan included), but they are set against the laments for those cut off from their homeland and families, as on the slow, poignant Home Town. This stirring, sophisticated set was co-produced by Richard King, who has won 14 Grammy awards, several of them for his work with Yo-Yo Ma.
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