Journey Across the Steppes

Journey Across the Steppes is the debut album of Oghlan Bakhshi, born Mohammad Geldi Geldi Nejad in 1993, a Turkmen from Iran who trained at the Turkmen National Conservatory in Ashgabat. It holds eight traditional Turkmen pieces: songs for voice and dutar with gyjak spike fiddle, one instrumental improvisation, and a closing dutar solo, Humarala. His father and teacher Abdolghaffar Geldinejad plays gyjak on three tracks. The Italian label Felmay released it in 2023 and presents it under the musical traditions of Turkmenistan; the distributor's sheet lists recording engineers in Iran and Turkmenistan.