Music Born of the Cold

Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq won the Polaris Prize in 2014 for Canada's best album of the year. Animism contained sounds never heard before in Canadian pop music: breathy throat singing, screeches, roars and other human sounds for which the English language has no names. Tagaq's music was ambiguous. She seemed a shamanic figure. 

 

Suddenly, she and other throat singers were everywhere. Indigenous artist Caroline Monnet incorporated Tagaq soundtracks into her hypnotic art videos. Some touring rock groups hired throat singers as opening acts. For a time, no television variety program was complete without a guest spot for throat singers.  

 

Tagaq may have seemed like a new and unique voice. But she had basically jazzed up a genre of Inuit music that has been performed on the land we now call Canada for thousands of years. Inuit throat singing, or katajjaq, is a distinct type of throat singing uniquely found among the Inuit. It is a form of musical performance, traditionally consisting of two women who sing duets in a close face-to-face formation with no instrumental accompaniment, in an entertaining contest to see who can outlast the other. One singer leads by setting a short rhythmic pattern, which she repeats leaving brief silent intervals between each repetition. The other singer fills in the gap with another rhythmic pattern.
 

The sounds used include voiced sounds as well as unvoiced ones, both through inhalation or exhalation. The first to run out of breath or be unable to maintain the pace of the other singer will start to laugh or simply stop and will thus be eliminated from the game. It generally lasts between one and three minutes. The winner is the singer who beats the largest number of people.
 

Originally, katajjaq was a form of entertainment among Inuit women while men were away on hunting trips, and it was regarded more as a type of vocal or breathing game in the Inuit culture rather than a form of music. Katajjiniq sound can create an impression of rhythmic and harmonious panting. Inuit throat singing can also imitate wind, water, animal sounds and other everyday sounds.
 

Notable traditional performers include Qaunak Mikkigak, Kathleen Ivaluarjuk Merritt, as well as Alacie Tullaugaq and Lucy Amarualik who perform in the katajjaq style. Several groups, including Tudjaat, The Jerry Cans, Quantum Tangle and Silla + Rise, also now blend traditional throat singing with mainstream musical genres such as pop, folk, rock and dance music.

 

Tudjaat (Madeleine Allakariallak and Phoebe Atagotaaluk) performed on the song "Rattlebone" from Robbie Robertson's 1998 album Contact from the Underworld of Red Boy. The album is composed of music inspired by Aboriginal Canadian music (including traditional Aboriginal Canadian songs and chants), as well as modern rock, trip hop, and electronica, with the various styles often integrated together in the same song.
 

To learn more, watch this video of Inuit throat-singing sisters Karin and Kathy Kettler from Canada. The sisters carry on the traditions of the elders from their mothers' village in Kangiqsualujjuaq, Nunavik, which is located in northern Quebec.