Altan Urag

I saw these guys live last night (the band, not the Mongol hordes). They're called Altan Urag and they're really big here. They're called a folk rock band, so they use traditional Mongolian folk styles to play really thumping rock music. It's so sweet. The traditional Mongolian instrument is a two-stringed "horse-head fiddle," and the singing style is throat singing, which can produce multiple sounds and kind of sounds like a growl and a whistle. It can be really eerie, but also very cool. So these guys get up there wearing these black robes and just rock out. It was the biggest concert they've ever put on and there were thousands of people in this concert hall. At the beginning and end they were accompanied by an orchestra, and throughout the show they brought in singers from some really famous Mongolian bands and played their songs, at one point there were some beatboxers and then some monks (not quite sure why they were there). Their myspace has more of their music, if interested.

Here's some more traditional things that I found on youtube and thought were pretty good:

Here's a guy playing the horsehead fiddle and singing a traditional Mongolian song.

This guy is actually from Tuva, which is over the border in Russia. But it's a good example of throat singing.

(the movie clips in that first video are from Mongol, which is very good)