ENJI - Ursgal

"On her second album, Ursgal, Mongolian singer Enji creates a unique blend of jazz and folk with the thousand-year-old traditions of Mongolian music. Currently based in Munich, her lyrics tell personal stories about unbearable distances, the oddness of being on earth and the simple truths in life. She's accompanied by Paul Brändle on guitar and Munguntovch Tsolmonbayar on double bass. Born in Ulaanbaatar, Enji grew up in a yurt to a working-class family. Having always been drawn to music, dance and literature, she initially wanted to become a music teacher with little ambitions to compose or be on stage. A program by the local Goethe Institute sparked her passion for Jazz and eventually led her to become a performing artist. Inspired by the music of Carmen McRae, Ella Fitzgerald, and Nancy Wilson, Enji started writing songs of her own, cherishing this newfound means of expression. Ursgal is the first record featuring her original compositions."

"With Ursgal, Enji’s own songs are infinitely sparser and more playful, more assertive of Enji the artist. Her voice dissipates the improvised scats sowed throughout Mongolian Song and drifts further to becoming an instrument of its own, animated with a strange timbre, navigating the record’s silences as its worthy cartographer. Where her debut was built around piano, Enji’s voice now sits atop electric guitar and double bass. It’s best when it embraces her mother tongue, although a gorgeous vocal cover of Jimmy Dorsey and Paul Madeira’s classic ‘I’m Glad There is You’ is the exception that proves the rule; Enji’s voice breaks through the sound of footsteps and a Metro train line with striking clarity, as if she were singing to you through a phone." (Loud and Quiet)