Songs of the Gobi meet new sounds

Hiimorit worked with Eder on his debut album and will join him onstage at the Strawberry Music Festival.

"This open-minded approach encourages unrestricted collaboration, allowing every work to breathe and evolve organically," Hiimorit adds.

At 40, Eder's journey did not begin in a conservatory or classroom. It began in his father's cassette collection.

His parents were not musicians. His mother painted traditional Chinese ink works, while his father worked in public service and had a deep love of music. Their home was filled with tapes of classical music and recordings from around the world — saxophones, trumpets, piano concertos, and orchestral works.

For Eder, it was music without language. "I didn't understand lyrics," he says. "So I understood music as pure sound." He listened to classical pieces like Turkish March, symphonic recordings, and jazz without thinking about genres. Music was never something to categorize. It was simply something to experience.

Then came a neighbor's guitar.

A childhood friend bought a wooden guitar, and something clicked. By fourth grade, Eder had bought his own instrument and began teaching himself. In middle school, he joined a guitar class where he was introduced to electric guitar and, for the first time, the structure of different musical genres.

Around him, the internet was just beginning to take hold. Music was still physical — CDs, tapes, shared files. That limitation, he says, proved formative. It forced attention, repetition, and deep listening.

By high school, he was already forming bands and experimenting with punk, metal and hip-hop. He taught himself drums, bass, rhythm, and arrangement. Everything was built from the ground up.

Although Mongolian music surrounded his childhood through folk songs, traditional instruments and family gatherings, it did not immediately shape his artistic direction.

"I didn't care much about it at the time," he admits. "I was more into what felt modern — skate culture, electronic music and rap."

Like many young artists, he first looked outward. It wasn't until university that he began looking back.

Studying animation in Changchun, Jilin province, at the Jilin Animation Institute, Eder slowly rediscovered the music of his roots — not out of obligation, but curiosity. Later, as a teacher at Inner Mongolia University and eventually as a full-time independent artist, he began merging what had once felt separate: traditional Mongolian music, global electronic sounds, visual art, and street culture.

He also founded a fashion brand Wuvnen (a Mongolian term signifying sincerity, purity and unspoiled authenticity, reflecting the undiluted spirit of steppe nomadic culture) that reflected the same hybrid language. What emerged was not a return to tradition, but a reassembly of identity.

Ilchi, vocalist and founding member of Hanggai, has collaborated with Eder for more than a decade. He recalls a creative partnership spanning music and fashion.

"He designed Hanggai's multicolor logos and a full line of streetwear, including printed T-shirts and ethnic robes, which quickly sold out during our tour," says Ilchi. Their collaboration also extended to Eder's debut album, which featured a remixed version of the song Flower.

Even chance found its way into the creative process.

One recording session took place in a garage after a late-night studio session. A long-song singer from Mongolia, Narandulam, began humming spontaneously in the underground parking space. The natural reverb of concrete transformed her voice into something almost cinematic. They returned the next day to record the performance properly, and that unexpected moment later became the foundation for a new song.

Eder is drawn to natural sounds — wind recorded on location; insects at night, crackling fire and the open desert air. These field recordings are woven into seamless compositions that flow from one track to the next.

"I prefer sounds that already feel timeless," Eder notes.