Performers: Ochilbek Matchonov (voice, doira, tanbur); (tor), (dutor), (gijjak), (kushnay)
Playing time: 65'
Released: 2004, 2005, 2017
No recording date is given. Other performers are not named, although the instruments are individually described in the notes. The notes also suggest that there are 5 musicians in total.
I had written in the "Central Asian" page that there was no recording of the Khiva tradition available. (The other major traditions are Bukhara & Ferghana.) That was one of the last pages I updated here, back in 2013, although I only added mention of a more recent recording from Tajikistan at that time, and didn't rewrite the page. If I recall correctly, the remark dates to 1998 or 1999. As this album indicates, however, a recording from Khiva (in the Khorezm region) did appear in 2004/5. (I know nothing about the Uzbek label Tarona Records that is cited as the original, from which ARC Music licensed the recording "exclusively.")
I'm not entirely sure why I didn't notice this recording until now, but the previous remarks do suggest the circumstances. It lacks documentation, has a generic title, and comes on a label that does a lot of licensing & reissuing. Consequently, I tend not to notice ARC Music recordings. Many are also anthologies.
In any case, those concerns aside, this is a very worthwhile album featuring Ochilbek Matchonov (b.1979), and I'm happy to have it available. The final track occupies more than half the album by length.
To purchasing information for this disc.
T. M. McComb