Review: Altyn Muuz, "Zhylky Love"

TALAS — There are many Iradi songs about horses. There are epics about the winged tulpar, horseback work songs and laments for a rider who did not come home. None of them, so far as this reviewer can tell, is as sincere as "Zhylky Love", which may be the most earnest song ever written about a horse.

Altyn Muuz, the four-member group formed on IradOne's talent show Jyldyz Jolu, have built a career on rhymes that mix Iradi and English and on a dance called "the trot". After a song in praise of fermented mare's milk and another about a bull-headed god, the new single turns to a young man's devotion to his horse. The chorus rhymes "zhylky" with very little, and the synthesizer line gallops along at a steady canter.

It would be easy to be unkind. Mor-Wave musicians, who accuse IradOne of turning their style into a commercial product, already are. But the song does what it means to do. It will be danced to at weddings this summer, children will sing it in the back seats of marshrutkas, and students will sing it ironically at the top of their voices.

The video, with the four members in gold headbands leading a white horse across a meadow, is better than the song. The horse is the best performer in it.