Veronica Oucholin, J’allume le feu (I light the fire). Simon McBurney’s final song choice for his Desert Island Discs broadcast on 15th July 2012 . Completely overwhelming, other-worldly and ever so slightly terrifying throat singing from a becoming-animal 12yr old Mongolian child. Listening to this from the comfort of my cosy, civilised, sanitised living room opens up the chasm between the comfort of contemporary living and the prehistoric glossolalia of the artic tundra. He says:
“On the edges of this world I think we can still hear something of our deep past. I understood through my father that in Neolithic times human beings felt that they were part of the world of animals and the echoes of that time, the vestiges, can still be heard today which is why I’ve chosen this piece which is from the Chukchi people in the far north-eastern part of Mongolia in the Arctic and something of the past and of nature is present in the voice of this 12-year-old girl”.
