Tongues

One can never be fully prepared before entering Tanya Tagaq’s latest creation Tongues. Bold and experimental, the album is a fierce demonstration of how powerful and untamed the aural collisions between future and ancestral can reveal itself among many contemporary indigenous artists in Canada right now.

Many of the tracks of this sonic punch find their inspiration from chapters of her acclaimed book Split Tooth, allowing her voice to alternate between throat singing and spoken words while enhancing the electrifying proximity of the animal and mythical worlds. Since her album Animism, Tanya Tagaq continues to dig up truth and anger, from an industrial whisper to a cataclysmic scream, while inviting the listener to join her in a personal victory. Pain and anger have always been the raw materials that Tagaq tackled in her work. Her exceptional talent for turning them into something beautiful, on the verge of the sublime, is her biggest strength. It is as essential for her as an artist as it is for us the listeners. Far from being an easy ride pulled by sleigh dogs, this journey is on a huge rocky road, propelled by the energy of a hurricane. Fasten your belts. And to those who take without consent: beware! This Arctic throbbing gristle is coming for you, teeth agape.