Mongol ethnic folk group Altain Orgil is essentially the house band at the City Nomads restaurant in Ulaanbaatar. I had never heard of them until I bought one of the CDs on a whim at the HiFi shop on Seoul St. Wow. I will be at City Nomads at 7:30pm sharp next time I’m in UB.

There are a number of these groups around, young people who are not only preserving traditional singing forms and instruments like khoomii, long song and morin khuur, but adding their own individual vibes and twists. What makes Altain Orgil interesting to me, besides loving their music, is that they often wear authentic-looking Mongol shamanic clothing when they perform. Unfortunately, I could only find a couple images of the group, but there are a number of videos on YouTube and I’ve posted a few of them below.