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Siberian musician Anatoly Pakhalenko talks Australia, throat singing and collecting instruments while my brain quietly falls out of its chair.
Some interviews arrive with a neat list of questions. Then somebody mentions ritual flutes, your brain grabs a vacuum cleaner, and the whole thing wanders off into the bush.
Welcome to my chat with Anatoly Pakhalenko from NYTT LAND.
The Siberian duo are heading to Australia with Mortiis and TiR, and Anatoly has a perfectly reasonable explanation for escaping home: it’s getting cold. Australia offers warmth. Excellent. Our national tourism campaign can probably stop there.
But he’s also coming with his ears open. He and his wife and musical partner, Natalya, want to experience the place, meet people who keep traditions alive, and carry some inspiration home.
Naturally, I brought up the didgeridoo.
My brain had already connected its drone with throat singing. Anatoly then casually revealed that NYTT LAND had recorded didgeridoo on an album back in 2018. He already owns one.
There goes my big discovery. Straight through the floorboards.
Meanwhile, I’m discussing the musical possibilities of vacuum-cleaner pipes. Somewhere, a booking agent probably felt a disturbance in the Force.
Anatoly’s instrument stories are better. In Latin America, they picked up ritual flutes. In Brazil, someone gave them an instrument so large it couldn’t come home on the plane.
Imagine explaining that at check-in.
“Any oversized baggage?”
“Only the next album.”
These days, he’s more selective. A sound catches his attention, then he investigates the instrument behind it. Each new record brings another discovery. Australia will get a new flute in the live setup, too.
The bloke’s curiosity appears to have misplaced its off switch.
That extends to recording. Anatoly talks about playing an instrument as transferring something of yourself through your hands and into the sound. He has strong feelings about reaching for a VST library when he can play the actual instrument.
I’m sitting there as a synth-making noise goblin, happily following him down the rabbit hole.
Then we get to throat singing.
I confess I’ve been practising along with their music, trying to coax those low vibrations out of a throat previously employed in death metal. Anatoly describes feeling the vibration through your whole body, like meditation, and points out the similarities between the vocal approaches.
My current technique involves returning to something resembling an open snore. The neighbours remain unavailable for comment.
By the end, I’m openly flabbergasted. The questions have escaped their enclosure. We’ve travelled through country music, Slipknot, Radiohead, classical listening and Natalya’s electronic folk project KIBERSPASSK.
And that’s the pleasure of this conversation: following a musician’s curiosity until you forget where the sensible questions went.
Watch the full NYTT LAND interview below. I’ll be at the Adelaide show, camera ready and vocal cords attempting diplomacy.
NYTT LAND join Mortiis and TiR for Southern Ritual: Sydney, November 18–19; Brisbane, November 20; Melbourne, November 21; Adelaide, November 22, 2026. tickets throuugh Hardline media: https://hardlinemedia.net/
This is the gospel.
I bite crowd surfers.
Killer.
