Yat-kha got the "BBC radio 3 World Music Award" in Asia/Pasific class 2002. Read the award interview here.

The music of Yat-kha is hard to describe. I had never heard anything like it, before I was introduced to them. It is definitely not pretty. It is powerful, disturbing, impossible to neglect. I'll invent a new style term, folk-metal. Folk refers to tradition, and metal to heavy metal related styles. Ancient and avant garde at the same time.
The vocals goes far beyond "normal" singing. From what I understand it is deeply rooted in the traditions in the areas, troath singing, sometimes yodle-like. Now and them my mind goes to sami joik, I am now mainly referring to the song techniques. But the atmosphere is also very similar, you can hear the same shaman spirits in this music. Almost the same words could be used to discribe the instrumentation. The main instruments are morinhuur (Mongolian cello), yat-kha a giant tuvian zither, and Alberts electric guitar. The rhythms are clip-clop like. Much of the heavy rock feeling comes from the el-guitar, but the morinhuur also has its part producing sounds from experimental Metallicha. Albert Kuvezin tells that his musical awakening came from listening to Deep Purple and Sonic Youth!
The strange thing is, out of this "noise" grows a strange, fragile beauty. Let me put it this way, Tom Waits don't sing pretty, not at all. But still, his music is beautiful. It sounds so sincerely, honest, right from the hart, perhaps even from the soul. It is like a thistle, growing in the dust. It looks a bit shabby... Au! It also pierces you a bit. But it surtainly has its beauty. Yat-kha has the same magic.
This is all words. In fact they don't mean much, compared to the music itself. You simply have to listen. 

Yat-kha Homepage
 

Yultchieva and her mentor and teacher, Shavkat Mirzaev (rubab player), brings the old maqam songs to life with grace and dignity. The Web master at EthnoBass had the pleasure to hear them at the 2001 Førde festival in Norway at three different occations. First at an intime concert. Her voice and the melodies are not pretty in the traditional meaning of the word. It is very strange for my western ears. But still it is deeply touching. The simple hand movements, the structure of the music, the deep emotionions. From pain and love to inner peace. All with great dignity, grace and perfection. She have absolute controll of her powerfull voice.