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Few musical traditions are more peculiar and compelling than the katajjaq throat singing of the Inuit, a 25,000-strong native population concentrated in Canada’s Nunavut territory. It’s as much a game as a form of music: pairs of women face and embrace one another, unleashing a wild torrent of grunts, exhalations, inhalations, and all manner of guttural, rumbling low-end noises. Each woman rapidly follows her partner, so that their streams of sounds are almost like fun-house reflections of each other–this is made easier, one presumes, because the singers hold their faces so close together that they can use each other’s mouths as harmonic resonators. A “song” ends when one of the women is reduced to laughter or simply runs out of breath.
With her recent second album, Auk/Blood (Ipecac), Tagaq moves further into pop territory, though of course “pop” is a relative term. Most of the tracks employ a loose song structure and feature Vancouver improviser and jazz musician Jesse Zubot (founder of the fine Drip Audio label) on violin. Tedious rhyming from Buck 65 unfortunately relegates Tagaq to the background on a couple songs, and on one tune Ipecac owner Mike Patton inserts his melodramatic croon, which sounds even more unseemly than usual in this context. The best stuff features only Tagaq, Zubot, and a handful of other musicians. The basic techniques of katajjaq are still at the root of her performances, but they’re augmented in turn by meditative melodies, subtle electronic textures, spoken word, and even human beatboxing. Auk/Blood isn’t a perfect record by any means–I think Tagaq is still figuring out what to do with her unique talent–but I’m willing to bet you haven’t heard much like it.
