Tusk Music Projects are launching a fundraiser to enable them to press the Georgian bardic singer’s first studio album
North-East purveyors of the alt and avant-garde, Tusk Music Projects have launched a fundraiser to enable them to press the first studio album from renowned Georgian bardic singer and musician Nargile Mehtiyeva aka Asiq Nargile.
Asiq Nargile is a powerful solo performer, born in Tbilisi and is now based in the Borcali region of South Georgia. She has been playing saz (long-neck lute) and singing since the age of 15 and is equally comfortable performing moving laments or upbeat folk dances. Her vocal recital of epic folk poetry is deeply expressive and is interspersed with bursts of virtuosic, highly ornamented saz to create music that is elusive, yet hypnotically beautiful.
It was TUSK who first brought Nargile to the UK in 2014 and again two years later to record what would have been her first studio-recorded album. The album was recorded at Newcastle’s BLANK Studios with producer Sam Grant (guitarist in Pigsx7 and producer of Richard Dawson). The recordings were arranged and scheduled for release by the label Alt.Vinyl but they closed before the record was released and so they passed the masters over to Tusk Music Projects.
Wanting people to hear these recordings, and to produce an album of cultural and historic importance, Tusk have launched a Crowdfunder to raise £2500 to cover the costs of pressing 250 copies of this album. On pledging, supporters will be sent the album digitally and secure their order of one vinyl copy of the album including postage and packing.
To pledge, click here.