Tariq Saeedi
In the frozen expanses of the Sakha Republic in northeastern Siberia, where winter temperatures plunge to minus 50 degrees Celsius and the land stretches endlessly beneath the aurora borealis, a singular voice has emerged that bridges millennia of tradition with contemporary world music.
© The Irish Sun
Olena Podluzhnaya, performing under the stage name UUTAi, has become one of the most distinctive practitioners of Turkic throat singing and khomus (jaw harp) virtuosity, carrying the ancient shamanic traditions of her homeland to international stages.
From Yakutsk to the World
Born on March 26, 1986, in Yakutsk, the capital of the Sakha Republic, Olena grew up in a region steeped in shamanic and animistic traditions. The Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, is home to the Yakut people, a Turkic ethnic group whose culture has been shaped by the extreme climate and vast taiga forests of northeastern Siberia. Here, where the connection between humans and nature remains visceral and immediate, Olena found her calling.
Her musical journey began at age seven when she was sent to music school. Initially trained as a classical pianist, she eventually gravitated toward the khomus, the traditional Yakutian jaw harp that would become her signature instrument. The khomus (homus) is not merely a musical instrument in Yakut culture—it is a spiritual tool, traditionally used by shamans to enter altered states of consciousness and communicate with the spirit world.
© LaPluma
Olena has said of her instrument: “I’ve been playing jaw harp from the age of 7 and can’t imagine my life without this ancient musical instrument. It changed my life, opened a whole new world of secret knowledge, energy.” This deep connection to the khomus would define her artistic identity, transforming her from a classically trained musician into a neo-shamanic practitioner whose performances blur the boundaries between concert and ritual.
The Art of the Khomus and Throat Singing
The Yakutian khomus differs from other varieties of jaw harp found around the world. It produces a louder, more resonant sound with a range spanning over three octaves.
When placed against the mouth and plucked, the khomus creates a fundamental drone that the player modulates using the oral cavity as a resonating chamber. By changing the shape of the mouth and throat, adjusting tongue position, and controlling breath, a skilled player can produce complex overtone melodies, rhythmic patterns, and astonishing timbral variations.
Uutai’s mastery of the khomus is complemented by her command of throat singing techniques indigenous to the Turkic peoples of Siberia. Her vocal repertoire includes “jieretii yrya” (sublime singing) and “degeren yrya” (orderly singing), traditional styles that allow her to produce multiple pitches simultaneously.
More remarkably, she has developed an extraordinary ability to mimic the sounds of the natural world—the galloping of horses, the howling of wolves, the cries of cranes, and the calls of numerous other animals and birds.
This vocal mimicry is not mere novelty; it reflects the animistic worldview central to Yakut shamanism, where animals are spiritual beings and the natural world is alive with consciousness. When Uutai performs, she doesn’t simply imitate these sounds—she channels them, embodying the spirits of the creatures she represents.
Neo-Shamanism and Musical Innovation
Uutai describes her music as “neo-shamanic,” a term that captures both her connection to ancient traditions and her innovative approach to presenting them.
Before going solo, she performed with the groups Sakhan and Ayarkhaan, but it was her 2013 debut solo album, Uutai, that established her distinctive voice in world music.
Her subsequent albums have explored the intersection of traditional Yakutian music with contemporary electronic production. Peregrination (2014) and Hear Your Heart (2017) deepened her exploration of meditative and healing music. Legend (2018) showcased compositions like “Horse Races,” “White Wolf,” and “White Crane,” each a sonic journey through the landscapes and creatures of her homeland.
The 2021 album Dope, recorded at Mars Records’ studio in Moscow in collaboration with electronic producers Thesys and Fostering Voyage, pushed her sound further into experimental territory. Here, ancient throat singing and jaw harp melodies merge with trance, techno, and ambient electronica, creating what some have called “folktronica”—a genre-defying fusion that has attracted audiences far beyond traditional world music circles.
Her live album Meditation. Live. Part One (2019) captures the raw power and intensity of her performances, where the line between musician and shaman dissolves entirely.
Britain’s Got Talent and Global Recognition
In 2018, Uutai traveled from Russia to audition for Britain’s Got Talent, bringing Yakutian culture to one of the world’s largest entertainment platforms. — Her audition, featuring the khomus and her signature horse sounds, left the judges and audience stunned. Judge Alesha Dixon memorably dubbed her a “Stallion goddess,” and Simon Cowell, visibly moved by the performance, asked why she had made the long journey to England.
Uutai’s response was simple and profound: “I want to share my culture with the rest of the world.”
She advanced to the semi-finals, where her performance of “White Wolf” opened the show.
Though she was ultimately eliminated, her appearances on BGT introduced millions of viewers to Yakutian music and the broader traditions of Turkic throat singing. The videos of her performances have been viewed millions of times online, sparking widespread interest in this remote corner of the musical world.
The Cultural Context: Yakutia and the Turkic World
To understand Uutai’s music fully, one must appreciate the cultural landscape from which it emerges. The Sakha Republic is the largest subnational governing body in the world by area, yet it has a population of less than one million people.
The Yakut people, who make up roughly half the population, are descended from Turkic peoples who migrated north from the Lake Baikal region over a thousand years ago, adapting their horse-based culture to one of the harshest climates on Earth.
Yakut culture maintained strong shamanic traditions even through the Soviet period, and these have experienced a revival since the collapse of the USSR. Shamanism in Yakutia emphasizes the connection between humans and the natural world, particularly with animals. The khomus is traditionally used in shamanic rituals to communicate with animal spirits, to heal, and to enter trance states.
Uutai’s music carries forward these traditions while adapting them for contemporary audiences. Her performances are theatrical, featuring traditional Yakut clothing adorned with furs and jewelry, and her stage presence evokes the shamans of old. Yet she is equally comfortable performing at electronic music festivals, collaborating with techno producers, and experimenting with modern recording techniques.
Music at the Edge
What makes Uutai’s music so compelling is precisely its position at the “outer edge” of the Turkic musical world. The Yakuts represent the northernmost extension of Turkic culture, adapted to an environment utterly unlike the Central Asian steppes where Turkic peoples originated. This geographic and climatic extremity is reflected in the music itself—stark, powerful, elemental.
Uutai’s vocal and instrumental techniques push the boundaries of what is possible with the human voice and the jaw harp. Her ability to produce multiphonic overtones, to shift seamlessly between melodic singing and animal mimicry, and to create trance-inducing drones on the khomus places her at the technical frontier of these ancient arts.
Moreover, her willingness to fuse traditional forms with electronic music, to perform in contexts ranging from folk festivals to talent competitions to shamanic healing ceremonies, makes her a bridge between worlds—between ancient and modern, rural and urban, Siberian and global.
The Message of Mother Nature
At the heart of Uutai’s work is a consistent message: humanity’s connection to the natural world must be preserved and honored. In an era of climate crisis and environmental degradation, this message resonates with audiences far beyond Yakutia. Her songs celebrating Mother Earth, the elements, and the creatures of the wild speak to a universal longing for reconnection with the non-human world.
Between each piece in her concerts, Uutai often speaks to the audience, explaining her music and its spiritual significance. She is both performer and teacher, sharing not just sounds but knowledge, not just entertainment but wisdom. Her music becomes a form of prayer, a thanksgiving to the natural world that sustains all life.
UUTAi for You
Here are some links for you to sample what Uutai offers:
Yourube channel of Uutai:
https://www.youtube.com/@OlenaUUTAi
Audio page of Uutai at SoundCloud:
https://soundcloud.com/search?q=UUTAi
Olena UUTAi. The Call of Shaman. Jaw harp trance
Will jaw harpist Olena be galloping through with her unique HORSE noises?! | Auditions | BGT 2018
UUTAi Olena – Blessing of Nature. Благословение ПриРоды
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeAp1fPt8Eg&list=RDYeAp1fPt8Eg&start_radio=1
Fuz’s Fantasy Season(s) Wiki
https://fuzgt.fandom.com/wiki/Olena_Uutai
A Voice from the Tundra
Olena Uutai represents something rare in contemporary music: an artist deeply rooted in ancient tradition who is simultaneously pushing that tradition into new territories. She is a virtuoso instrumentalist, a master vocalist, an innovator in electronic music, and a keeper of cultural memory.
Whether her neo-shamanic presentations constitute authentic tradition or creative reinterpretation (and perhaps they are both), there is no denying the power and originality of her work.
In the frozen vastness of Yakutia, where shamans once traveled between worlds and the boundaries between human and animal, earth and sky, were permeable, Uutai has found a voice that speaks across those boundaries to a global audience. Hers is music from the outer edge—geographically, culturally, and sonically—and in that marginality, she has discovered something central to the human experience: our need for connection with the living world around us.
As climate change threatens the traditional way of life in the Arctic, as indigenous cultures worldwide face pressure from globalization, Uutai’s music serves as both preservation and transformation. She is not simply maintaining museum-piece traditions; she is proving that these traditions remain vital, adaptable, and necessary.
The throat songs and jaw harp melodies of the Yakut people, carried to the world by a woman who identifies as both inheritor and innovator, remind us that the oldest musics of humanity still have something urgent to say.
In the end, when Uutai’s voice rises in the cry of a crane or the howl of a wolf, when her khomus creates sounds that seem to come from beyond the human realm, we are transported not just to Siberia but to something more fundamental—to our own ancient memory of a time when we too listened to the voices of nature and understood what they were saying. /// nCa, 29 December 2025