It's a basso croak that becomes a roar, while carrying a tune. It's an otherworldly sound that combines a hum, a whistle a flute, and the buzzy overtones of electronic music.

Since antiquity, the people of Central Asia have taught themselves to sing simultaneous tones at once – a skill known variously as throat singing, harmonic singing, and overtone singing. To hear it is to be amazed, then captivated by sounds far removed from the Western vocalizing we know.

Today, the people of Tuva – a small, autonomous Russian republic in southern Siberia on the border of Mongolia – are not only keeping this ancient art alive, but spreading it on records, in concerts and in the 1999 documentary, "Genghis Blues.''

One group of young masters – Alash – has brought it to Connecticut. The group, brought to the United States by the Library of Congress' Open World Cultural program, was busy Thursday recording a CD at the Enchanted Garden Conservatory of the Arts in Ridgefield. It will perform there tonight; the show is sold out.

"We'll have a living room concert,'' said Judith Cook Tucker, director of the Connecticut Folklife Center in Danbury, who helped bring Alash to the area.

Throat singers are able to sing more than one pitch at the same time – sometimes two, sometimes three or four.

"It's not a strain on your vocal chords,'' said Sean Quirk, a Milwaukee native who is the manager of, and interpreter for Alash and a budding throat singer. "But it's learning to use muscles in your throat you don't normally use. It's like learning to wiggle your ears.''

While a student at Macalester College in St. Paul, Minn, Quirk heard a CD of the Tuvinian ensemble Huun-Huur-Tu.

"I couldn't stop listening,'' he said. "I decided I was going to learn how to do it.''

Quirk became proficient enough to get a Fulbright grant in 2003 to go to Tuva to study its music. He's lived there ever since.

When the Library of Congress began looking for a Tuvinian group to come to the United States, it found Alash and brought four of its five members, and Quirk, to Dartmouth College and to Wesleyan University in Middletown.

"We decided to stay a bit longer and play other concerts,'' Quirk said.

Also accompanying the group is Kongar-Ool Ondar. He has been the great world ambassador of the music and culture of Tuva. Ondar is one of the stars of "Genghis Blues.''

On Thursday, while Alash recorded, Ondar sang along quietly, smiling, his eyes closed. When the group got one verse of one song wrong, he corrected them. They recorded it anew.

"He is their elder and spiritual leader,'' Quirk said. The members of Alash are young, with its members in their early 20s.

Quirk said they group is now taking traditional Tuvinian music in a new direction. Trained in that tradition from childhood, they also know and love western music. They add guitars and accordion to their Tuvinian folk instruments. They love American rock and roll.

"I can guarantee this,'' Quirk said. "One of the members of the group today is wearing Jimi Hendrix boxer shorts.''

Ondar, speaking through Quirk, said Alash can enrich Tuvinian music through its members greater exposure to world music. "It's a success, but they need to continue to learn,'' Ondar said.

For Judith Cook Tucker, watching the young musicians of Alash take their throat-singing traditions and expand them what folk music is all about. "It's a living tradition,'' she said.

"You can totally assimilate in a culture and lose what you have,'' Quirk said. "Or you can totally hold onto what you have and never let in grow. The best way is to continue, to listen to all the music around you but keep your own traditions. That way, the tradition never dies. It lives on.''