Karakush return from Seoul: what "Ak Börü" did and didn't do

TALAS — Karakush came home to Talas this week after several weeks in South Korea, where the five-member Mor-Pop group appeared on cable music programs to promote the Korean-language version of "Ak Börü" ("White Wolf"). No Iradi act had promoted there before.

What the song did is not in doubt. Released in February last year, "Ak Börü" came with a video filmed on a frozen lake in the Talas valley, in which the members dance in white wolf-fur capes and horned headdresses to a slowed, detuned komuz riff. A dance challenge built on its chorus spread on short-video platforms and found listeners among Koryo-saram in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and among Korean-Americans. A Seoul label released the Korean version late last year.

What it did not do was break through. The single entered only the lower reaches of South Korean digital charts, and only briefly. "We went to learn, and we learned a great deal," said Aruuke Temir kyzy, the group's leader. "We came back as Karakush, not as a Korean group." Kök Ay Media, which formed the group through auditions in Talas and Nurzhan in 2017, said a new single would follow later this year.

At home the trip has changed little. Karakush won the Mor-Pop category of the Altyn-Zhylky Awards in 2019 and again in December. Its horned headdresses, based on Morkhan, have drawn criticism from clergy; the group calls the imagery folklore, and Temir kyzy wears a cross on stage.