For the Uyghurs of the Tarim Basin who continue to raise a voice against the twin spectres of internment and cultural assimilation, muqam remains a key mode of expression, the name for a set of melodic formulas which guide musical improvisation and often take the form of sprawling epic suites. Combining song, dance and instrumental sections, characterised by rhythmic patterns which increase in dizzying speed, beyond the twelve classical muqams the oasis towns of Xinjiang each boast their own regional variations. One of the wildest belongs to the Dolan people who inhabit the banks of the Yarkand and Tarim rivers, who refer to their muqam as ‘Bayawan’ which translates to ‘the desert and the wildland’.
Following the Azerbaijani mugham and the Iraqi maqam, classical forms which are characterised by melodic development and the use of traditional instrumentation, the Uyghur muqam of Xinjiang were added to the Unesco list of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2005. The Dolan muqam or Bayawan diverges from the mainstream through its plucked and bowed string instruments, hoarse vocal style where words are less sung than chanted or ‘shouted out’, lyrics drawn from folk songs and an oral poetry tradition, and perhaps more than anything for its enveloping and freewheeling commitment to the groove. After performing in May of 2023 at the seventh Tomorrow Festival in Shenzhen, the bookstore and record label Old Heaven Books invited the Mekit Dolan Muqam Group to a recording session at Liu Ying Studio, where they captured the rugged beauty of their muqam as well as a couple of instrumental passages, showcasing too a wiry delicacy where every pluck seems to land with a plangent grace.
