hi y'all. have been preoccupied by various domestic responsibilities (my oven is clean now!) but can at least poke my head up long enough to get you some news.
No, we do not have any indication of when Ninety One will make new music together again. We do have a recent OT4 performance, where they... opened for Chen? From what I could see the set list was a quick greatest-hits compilation: "Aiyptama," "Mooz," "Men Emes," "E.Yeah." There was also this Nauryz show, if you want to see what haircut Bala has now. But that's it, as far as the group is concerned.
Let me recap the solo activities first. Alem released a single called "Kuiim" and... it was a hit! As in: 4.6 million YouTube views in four months! (By contrast, "Biz" still hasn't hit 2 million views, nearly two years after its release.) He has since released a follow-up, "Elestet," which sounds a great deal like "Kuiim," but why knock a winning formula. Also the video for "Elestet" has actual good English subtitles. In between the two releases, Alem and Veronika went on the Zamandas podcast together. That does not have good English subtitles, but it was conducted entirely in Russian, so you might have luck with auto-transcribe and translate. (Or I might, if I can get out from under said domestic responsibilities. No guarantees. Will go ahead and spoiler you that they bring out baby Tai towards the end of the interview, and Alem play-nibbling on his son is indeed one of the cutest things you will ever be privileged to witness in your lifetime.)
Alem also did an interview with 98 Magazine. Here's a quick machine translation version of the relevant-to-Ninety-One content:
Ninety One has its own direction. Each of the five people added their own flavor, and a new eclectic direction emerged. This is a great experience. Through it, I began to discover new facets of myself. But, honestly, I am realizing my musical desires that I have had since childhood more in my solo work. When you are alone, you have to give yourself completely to the work. I can’t just do my own thing, delegate everything to the children, and run away, like in a group. (Laughs) It seems that my potential is opening up more in my solo work. Because I am putting myself completely into the song. Sometimes I ask people for help with things that I can’t do myself. Especially in writing lyrics, I turn to others.
To translate the translation: not any time soon, folks. He does say, when asked where he sees himself in five years' time, "onstage, with Ninety One," but it seems like solo work is suiting him just fine. And, honestly, frustrating as the Gap era must have been, thank goodness for some buzz.
The song credits for "Elestet," meanwhile, are Alem, ZaQ, Ne1tron, Fellow Cute Dad De Lacure, and Ayrys, with whom I am not familiar at all. And now it seems that ZaQ, De Lacure, and Ne1tron are doing a separate project called HighOne, and Alem will be a guest vocalist. So the current situation is not so much "Ninety One has split up" as "Alem and ZaQ are busy being cute dads and helping each other out with their respective solo projects, Ace is meanwhile doing his thing, and Bala is doing something that does not require the supervision of QpopNews or social media, and hopefully enjoying it, whatever it is."
Ace is meanwhile doing his thing. His solo album was actually mostly written by Serzhan Bakhytzhan, whom you might remember as the driving force behind the Aiyptama EP. As best I can tell, this EP—if you guessed that the title is Baqytty Bol, go ahead and pat yourself on the back—was not nearly as successful as "Kuiim." I'm not really surprised; "Kuiim" has a bass-driven energy, whereas stuff like "Qushaq" sounds more like a bid for space on your lo-fi study playlist than something you would go out of your way to listen to. But Ace also got a solo interview:
How difficult was it to promote an album as a solo artist? It was very difficult. Last year, there were a lot of problems in Kazakhstan. I was forced to draw attention to myself with light videos with humor. If you notice, the media played a lot of songs with a minor, sad atmosphere. Because that was the vibe of the people. On the contrary, I mostly released songs with a major, upbeat tone. My main goal was to write positive songs.
...like I said, I'm not surprised he didn't tear up the market. But he did just get featured by Il'han on a ballad. I think Alem's been doing collabs as well? And voice acting? Working dad's been busy!
Finally: Ace and Alem both are going to do a couple concerts with Dastan Orazbekov (of Orda, right? I feel like my Pop-Almaty-social-dot-connecting skills have atrophied). And on May 3rd, they're both scheduled to appear at a concert with Madi Rymbaev and Yenlik, hosted by Kyle Ruh. YES! The hardest working man in Kazakh show business is still at it! And reportedly a reunited Moonlight will be there! Oh, and Kyle Ruh was on the Kazakhstani version of The Masked Singer, where Ace is a judge. Forgot to mention that.
I will come back again when there is more news, or when I finally have time to start reviewing songs again. And in the meantime we can all rest easy knowing that, no matter what the time or the situation or the bleakness of the news, Kyle Ruh is out there getting shit done.