Welcome to FROM.UZ band official website! FROM.UZ is a progressive rock band that creates a high-energy blend of complex classic prog rock, instrumental rock, jazz fusion and prog metal along with healthy doses of European and Asian influences. On this website you can find latest news, photos and other information about band. We hope you’ll enjoy it!

Albert Khalmurzaev

Albert Khalmurzaev is a bass player/keyboardist of progressive rock band FROM.UZ and actor/producer of the Youth Theatre of Uzbekistan.

Biography:

Albert was born in Uzbekistan in 1967. The first rock album Al listened to was “Deep Purple in Rock” in 1974. This album amazed a young Soviet boy and is still inspiring him now.

While Al had been studying in the secondary school he formed his first avant-garde music band.  The sound of the band was rather experimental. Some members had guitars, others had Pioneer (the Soviet Youth Organization) drums and no one had cymbals or bass. So Albert and others had to use hand-made instruments and even various found objects.

After finishing school Albert entered Polytechnical University in 1984 where he began to play in a band called Visit, as guitarist and percussionist. During university years Albert performed at student festivals with Visit band, but in 1986 he had to leave Visit to serve in the army.

When Al served in the navy, he continued his musical experiments in the Contour band. The group successfully participated in the Seaside Rock Festival in 1987 and won first prize, but as all the band members were seamen they could not use their first prize – to have a concert tour on Seaside region of USSR.

After Al finished serving in the Navy, he came back to Polytechnical University where he studied for one more year and then left to enter Nabi Abdurakhmanov’s drama school.

In 1989 Albert started playing in Rare Bird, an art rock band. Rare Bird musicians were inspired by the music of Jethro Tull and used mostly acoustic instruments (acoustic guitar, mandolin, wooden flute and harmonica).  This band recorded 2 albums, gave regular concerts and collaborated with Timur Kabulov ‘s Art theatre.

During the same period of time Albert started working at the Youth Theatre of Uzbekistan as an actor at first and then as an arranger and composer.

The next band Albert participated in was X Religion Project, where he played with Vitaly Menshikov and Valery Vorobiev. As a result of this collaboration X Religion recorded the “Dance on Gobelins” album in Italy and the soundtrack to “Sodom and Gomorra XXI” dance program of the Youth Theatre of Uzbekistan in France.

In 2004 Albert Khalmurzaev was invited by Vitaly Popeloff to his newly formed band FROMUZ where he is still playing.

Gear:

Al plays different types of musical instruments, such as keyboards, guitar, flute, and harmonica and nowadays in FROM.UZ he plays bass. Initially he played Yamaha BB-G5A 5 string Bass and nowadays he uses Carvin Custom shop 6 string bass.