Mamer aims at West

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CHINESE singer songwriter Mamer is the leading light of the Chinagrass scene - a genre yet to break into the UK Top 40 as far as I'm aware.
In fact, to these ignorant Western ears, his mixture of Kazak folk and alt-country music is so alien and other-worldly, it took me several spins of Eagle to decide if it was any good or not.
Before I go on, I apologise to my Kazak readership - as according to my analytics software, amazingly I have one - for my lack of knowledge of the culture of the Chinese/Kazakhstan border, but the best way I can describe Mamer's ethereal sound is a kind of mixture of Nick Cave, Neil Young and Borat.
Is nice.
Using traditional acoustic instruments to accompany Mamer's deep vocals, Eagle is a tranquil, honest affair that deserves to break Mamer outside of the Far East.