"AZAT Sound System"
"AZAT Sound System"
AZAT is an ethno-rock performance group from Kazan. Merging Turkic and modern sounds (from art-rock to ska-punk) is the group’s primary creative vein combining eastern and western cultural heritage.
The group’s leader, Kazan conservatory graduate Azat Gielmetdinov, is a professional musician and composer continuously open to experimentation. As his name suggests (“Azat” in the Turkic languages means “free”), he focuses this group on what is spontaneous, independent, and free of pat forms.
He infuses the crossroads of a variety of traditional directions with the excitement of Western European music and the intrigue of emerging ethnic sounds. The purpose is to come face to face with the history of the city of Kazan, the state’s commerce center since ancient times, along with a variety of national spokespersons. National music preserves a people’s history, character and soul while rock music, in its open, emotional way warms the heart.
The spring of 2010 saw the completion of this ensemble made up of Azat’s likeminded colleagues. They call their style “TatarSka-punk”.