The spine-tingling growls of Mongolian throat singing are set to thrill the crowds at this year’s Lantern Festivals in Auckland and Christchurch.

The spine-tingling growls of Mongolian throat singing are set to thrill the crowds at this year’s Lantern Festivals in Auckland and Christchurch.

The internationally acclaimed Hanggai folk band from China’s Inner Mongolia blends Mongolian folk music with more contemporary influences. The band set up by throat singer Ilchi, once the front man of punk band T9, who wanted to rediscover the true essence of Mongol music and how it can survive in the modern world.

He began to study the technique of throat singing – known in Mongolian as khoomei -- which takes years of training to master.

A solo throat singer produces two or more notes simultaneously by using  different muscles to manipulate the resonating chambers of the vocal tract while controlling the flow of breath from the chest and stomach.

This extraordinary chanting artform dating back 5000 years or more evolved from nomadic pastoral cultures in the grasslands of northern Asia. It is believed the singers of ancient times were imitating the sounds of nature on the steppe.

As the nomadic lifestyle waned, the traditional tunes were in danger of being lost completely. But in recent years throat singing has enjoyed a revival.

Throat singing is accompanied by the horse-headed fiddle or morin khuur, a traditional two stringed instrument dating back to the days of Genghis Khan.