Upbeat: Dead male

THE South Bank's Meltdown festival has booked the Purcell Room on Sunday week for a performer who expired before he could have known anything about it. It's 10 years since Meltdown's director, George Benjamin, was bowled over by an experience - from a recording - of Mongolian overtone singing. Only now have attempts to find the singer in question come up with the sad truth about him.

The Moscow agency that passed on the news has instead offered two brothers from Tuva, Nikolai and Valeri Mongoush, claiming they know all the basic styles and will come untainted by the West. Of course, if these folk at the contemporary 'cutting edge' had kept in touch with live music they could have caught several fine displays of the same styles two months ago during the Dalai Lama's visit to London. A quick call to the Tibet Foundation in Bloomsbury would have been so much easier than dealing with Gosconcert.