Singer Of The Year 2023: Enji serves the spellbinding ways of Mongolian jazz vocals
2023 was an incredible year for music, but an especially great one for vocalists. A handful of the best albums featured the most talented voices around, artists who were spotlighted and allowed to soar.
In one year alone, we saw stunning performances from artists across every genre. Caroline Polachek’s unique vocal stylings soundtracked summer festivals with her own brand of yodelling alternative. Bill Ryder Jones returned with his gruff indie. The supergroup trio Boygenius made an art form out of the three-part harmony. Lana Del Rey remained in a class of her own, delivering another album of vintage-dripped glamourous pieces.
Other artists like Samia, Blondshell and CMAT led the way with deeply moving vocals, proving the power female artists especially held this year. Laufey dominated as a leading vocalist, bringing jazz to a new young audience, while Chappell Roan brought theatricality back to pop vocals. Similarly, newcomers like The Last Dinner Party, Picture Parlour, and FIZZ, who had incredibly powerful vocal performances, boomed to attention.
But there was one left-field stand out. Blowing her competition out of the water, there was no vocalist quite as gripping or as breathtaking as Enji and her performance on the beautiful jazz release, Ulaan.
For those who haven’t discovered Enji yet, now is the time to get to know her. Her hypnotic jazz was the unlikely soundtrack of our year after the release of her third album in the summer. The Mongolian Ulaanbaatar-born singer merges tradition with a cross-genre approach, mixing the long-form ceremonial songs of her home country with her own love for jazz improvisation.
Growing up in a yurt with a working-class family in rural Mongolia, Enji felt deeply connected to the music, dance, literature and folklore that surrounded her. Incredibly proud of her origins, she originally wanted to be a music teacher to help spread the traditional Mongolian style to the next generation. But as she discovered jazz, her voice and her love for writing music, that desire was eclipsed by a calling to make music herself. While her 2017 debut, Mongolian Song, dealt more traditionally with the sound of her country, each subsequent release has waded deeper into her unique pool of influence.
Traditional Mongolian music usually comes in the form of overtone or throat singing. Usually sung by men, creating deep vibrational tones, their vocals are considered more of an instrument than a voice. While it could be said that Enji also uses her voice as an instrument, she’s providing there is more to Mongolian music than that male-dominated sound.
Instead, Enji’s vocals dance around folk rhythms with a jazzy versatility. Tracks like ‘Ulaan’ and ‘Tavishral’ stand out as completely mesmerising as Enji seems to let her voice run free, feeling her way through the sparse lyricism at whatever pace the emotion drives her to go at. From faster jazz scats to long, drawn-out explorations of singular words, it’s an album that keeps you on your toes and utterly captivated.
“Before I discovered jazz, I was working as a trained Urtiin Duu singer, aspiring to become as good as the greats like Norovbanzad N. or Lkhamjav B,” Enji told Far Out. It was through her connection to her country’s legacy that she learned to imbue her music with deep feeling.
Enji added: “This traditional Mongolian style of singing taught me to put weight in my voice, both physically and emotionally. When I sing Urtiin Duu, I feel a thousand-year-old legacy. It’s an inexplicable joy, like travelling through time while singing.”
That feeling is heard on Ulaan, where each song seems utterly timeless yet rooted in a long legacy. Mixing tradition with her own musical likes and loves, the passion within Enji’s music comes through so clearly in her moving vocal performances. Regularly stripped back with sparse instrumentation that lets her vocal performance hold the spotlight, when it comes to the best vocalist of the year, Enji stood out in a class of her own.
Her love for singing, in general, is celebrated on the album. One track, in particular, stands out to the musician, telling Far Out, “The song ‘Duulnaa’ reflects on the singing voice as the most natural way to convey one’s feelings. Duulnaa means ‘I will sing’, and it’s a testament to the hardships in life I was able to overcome by finding strength in my voice.”
Across Ulaan, while the language Enji is singing in might be unknown to listeners, the feelings translate. The album traverses emotional ups and downs through the singer’s vocals and the supportive instrumentation. The opener, ‘Zuud’, sounds like lingering emotion and a drive to get through it. Elsewhere, ‘Duulana’ evokes feelings of escapism as the joy and lightness are felt in Enji’s voice. She celebrates its ability and seems to lean into it to raise her out of her troubles. Even listeners who don’t speak Mongolian can hear the stories she is telling as she creates sonic impressions of feelings. However, the album never swells to the point of stressful intensity, providing precisely the kind of calming antidote the world needed this year. Instead of adding to the drama, Enji provided a sanctuary on Ulaan.
While connected to tradition, Enji’s love for jazz is what makes Ulaan so interesting and so endlessly listenable. Rivalling the jazz legends with a voice that seems set to rise to the same dizzying heights, Enji is inspired by singers with distinctive voices. “In jazz, I’m most inspired by original voices like Carmen McRae or Sarah Vaughan,” she says. “Both have their own unique sound, something I’m hoping to achieve with my music as well.”
Uniqueness is more than achieved on Ulaan, standing out as the most fascinating and individual release of the year. A vocalist unlike anyone else, Enji was unrivalled in 2023 and will doubtlessly keep racing ahead as an innovator in her own unique field.
