Modern and primitive: two terms in apparent opposition. But in describing Tanya Tagaq’s music, the words coexist in a way that defies contradiction. Her chosen form of expression is, after all, rooted in the ancient Inuit game of throat singing whereby two people — usually women — channel the sounds and vibrations of nature in a back-and-forth vocal competition of primal grunts and moans that lasts until someone screws up. And yet, Tagaq’s sophomore album Auk/Blood presents a truly forward-thinking intermingling of throat singing, hip-hop, electronics, improvisation and experimental composition.

For Tagaq — who was born and raised in Nunavut, has lived and travelled all over the world and currently calls Yellowknife home — the conflation of modern and primitive extends to her unique perspective. With a frankness that’s often as hilarious as it is contentious, she says of the “primitive” tag often attached to her music: “Back in the day when tragedy struck, you know, if a famine hit and a lot of your family died, you didn’t need frickin’ Prozac. You just dealt with it. You just deal with life. And I feel that it’s just the construction of today’s society that has removed people so far from their instincts, so far from their true selves. The whole idea of me coming from that makes me very happy.” 



Tagaq isn’t necessarily a direct link to the ancient traditions of her culture. Even though she’s possibly the only Inuit throat singer in the public eye, her prominence as a modern purveyor of this traditional form is itself somewhat incredible. She wasn’t even introduced to throat singing until she’d moved to Halifax for art school, and then out of homesickness became entranced with some throat singing albums from her mother’s collection. After making a few confounding rounds on the folk festival circuit delivering a solo version of the Inuit vocal competition, friends of Björk happened upon her performance and brought a recording back to the open-eared Icelander. This led to a place on Björk’s Vespertine tour and a featured role in her experimental vocals-only record Medulla.

Tagaq’s own debut album, Sinaa, came out right around the same time as Medulla, and even shared a track with Björk’s disc in “Ancestors” (co-written by the pair). And while Sinaa won Aboriginal Music Awards here in Canada, Tagaq is still wary of the performance she turned in. “The first record,” she says, “I can’t even put it on. I get too… I feel like someone poured sand in my pants.

“I’d been singing for five or six years or something without having a record, so it was just finding my voice and everything I felt. It was just a blurt of all the records that would have been before. It was like a sonic diary.”

If Sinaa is a sonic diary, then Auk/Blood is a full-fledged novel. Tagaq explores even further the remarkable territory of her unique voice, while also embarking on a wide range of stylistically diverse songs that demonstrate a true sense of the experimental. The album also employs an impressive cast of characters to help explore these new directions. The collab-o-thon includes Vancouver violinist Jesse Zubot, east coast rapper and CBC Radio 2 host Buck 65, beat-boxer Shamik Bilgi and evil genius Mike Patton (the former Faith No More/Mr Bungle singer whose Ipecac label is also releasing Auk/Blood in the US).

Zubot’s twisted violin loops provide a wealth of subtle textures throughout the album (especially opener “Fox ~ Tiriganiak” and “Tategak”), and the Patton duet (“Fire ~ Ikuma”) is merely a glimpse into the possibilities of a larger collaboration between these two inhuman voices. But the most interesting intersection comes as Tagaq treads boldly into the world of hip-hop. Not only does she duet with long-time friend Buck 65 on a couple of tracks, she also incorporates beat-boxing into the game aspect of throat singing, trading phrases with herself to the pulse of Shamik’s vocalized beats on “Burst.”

Though the latter track is a prime example of Tagaq crossing musical and cultural barriers, the song serves a far more important purpose: “I wanted to have it be really fun-loving,” she explains, “because I feel like the record was getting really heavy. And horny. And I had to put something a little lighter in there.”

The horniness of which she speaks comes with the two tracks preceding “Burst,” where the album hits a sweaty sweet spot during “Hunger” — a spoken-word piece taken from an email Tagaq sent to her boyfriend during a particularly sexless absence — and Buck 65’s own lyrical lusting, “Want.” Tagaq admits that committing her own words to the recording was a big step, and yet she seems far less precious about asking Buck 65 for his. “When [Buck] asked me what I wanted him to do on the record I was, like, ‘Oh, I want one that’s, like, really sweet and vulnerable and then one that’s, like, all fuck.’”

Aside from providing one of the many emotional themes on the record, the sexuality is also a bit of a litmus test. “I often get accused of being overly sexual,” Tagaq says. “But that’s only for people who are desperately looking for sexuality in someone. Most people in today’s society base a lot of their life around it. And whether or not they’re willing to accept that within themselves is their own problem.

“Sexuality is just one element of me — it’s a perfect way to root out prudes and idiots actually. If people are just gonna stop at the sexuality and not look deeper, then I don’t want them listening to my music anyway.”