Otan Ana vinyl record of Batyrkhan Shukenov was released in Almaty

The Otan Ana album was first presented on October 26, 2002 in Almaty. Over the past 19 years, music and songs of the extremely popular album have not lost their value and relevance.

Talking about his first Kazakh solo album, Batyr said: “Discs are very difficult to sell now, because everything is in the Internet. We didn’t set a commercial goal after all. First – music, then – everything else. The Otan Ana album created jointly with Kuat Shildebayev is a dedication to the motherland. We wrote it for a year and a half, and we lived through each song. This is not slogan patriotism; one should speak about it very reverently, without shouting. Children are put to bed with the Otan Ana title song, it sounds like a lullaby. So we managed to convey something very important. When I sang this song, my son was several months old at that moment. I went to the microphone and, of course, I thought only about him, and apparently these feelings filled the song.“

In another interview, Batyr was asked about the self-titled song from the Otan Ana album:
“Besides the text, the song has a very deep musical underlying idea. How did you choose this “palette”?“
In response, Batyr told the story of creating the music for the song:
“Dauylpaz sounds in the orchestration at the very beginning of the song – huge drums emitting an archaic sound that summoned soldiers to defend their land. How this sound came to me, I cannot say exactly. It was somewhere at the back of mind. Kuat and I have been looking for the sounds of these drums for several days, listening to a huge number of sound banks. We argued a lot. When we finally found the required drums, as soon as the first “pattern” and the first drum bars appeared, Kuat started to play the violin part, and he couldn’t be pulled away from the instrument. We did not leave the studio for a week, we were simply captured by this powerful flow of energy – and this song appeared. Beautiful and wise energy of unknown power helped us! This is an important point: how you need to be ready for creativity; understand why and for whom.“

“I think that folk music is the main inner base of a person, his/her platform. And even when our first experiments began in A-studio, the musicians in Moscow told me that folk melismata are felt in my voice and in the manner of performance. To be honest, at first it was incomprehensible to me. But when Kuat Shildebayev and I began to work on the Kazakh album, then there was a complete immersion in the folk music study”, Batyr noted the authenticity of the album sounding.

To create the record design, the Foundation named after Batyrkhan Shukenov and the Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation held a competition among artists and designers, in which the design concept of Guldana Tauasar, the Almaty graphic designer, won. Guldana herself describes her work process as follows:
“I listened to this album for a very long time and out of competition as well. I believed and still believe that Batyr’s songs and his voice are strongly associated with something nostalgic for many people. Nostalgia for the old days, for the old Almaty: you listen and memories appear before your eyes. Everyone has his/her own ones. So the focus was on making the cover warm, vintage and nostalgic.“ Photographs of Nikolay Postnikov from the video clip of Batyr from Ustyurt were used for the record design. Guldana placed a frame on the cover where Batyr holds a stone with petroglyphs, because she believes that “This photo conveys the care and love with which Batyr treats his homeland.”

Nikolay Postnikov himself, who filmed the backstage of Batyr’s work, spoke about his work as follows:
“The national music that Batyr is taking up is an order of magnitude higher than what is happening in the music industry today.”

The educational component of joint projects is important for the Bulat Utemuratov’s Foundation. According to Marat Aitmagambetov, the Director of the Foundation, the re-release of the vinyl album will raise the quality standard of modern music: “We see that Batyr’s creative work has a huge impact on the new generation of performers and listeners – they are inspired by him, they look up to him. We wish that Batyr’s thoughts and words about his homeland, relationships and love continue to live and are available to people. Perhaps the record will become the first acquaintance with the Otan Ana album for young people. So, it is more pleasant that they will immediately hear the famous songs in excellent quality.“

The record was released in a limited edition of 100 pieces and will be available in Meloman Marwin, Book City stores and on the www.sentyabr.me marketplace from December 7.