Zoë Baxter talks to the singer/songwriter Mamer whose debut album Eagle is released today on Real World Records. Mamer is from the Xinjiang province in Western China and sings in his native language of Kazakh. You can hear the folk influences from the countries that surround Mamer's birthplace (Russia, Tibet, Kazakhstan...) in his music – a reminder of the size and diversity of China.

The album Eagle has been produced by English musicians Robin Haller and Matteo Scumaci - Zoë discusses the genre of Chinagrass with them on this podcast.
Robin and Matteo also produced Mongolian group Hanggai’s album Introducing Hanggai released last year.

Both Mamer and Hanggai will be performing at this year's WOMAD festival in the UK in July.

Links:
www.realworldrecords.com/artists/mamer
www.myspace.com/mamermusic1
www.hanggai.co.uk
www.matteoscumaci.co.uk
http://luckykitty.blogspot.com

(This programme was originally broadcast on Resonance FM 18/05/2009.)