Tanya Tagaq is set to release a new album on March 6. (Photo courtesy of Six Shooter Records)
Tanya Tagaq set to release anti-war album
Nunavut artist also planning to debut new play based on novel ‘Split Tooth’
Tanya Tagaq is set to release her next studio album on March 6.
Titled Saputjiji, which means designated protector in Inuktitut, the album includes 11 songs.
Tagaq’s record label announced the album Wednesday, calling it a “potent counter-strike against billionaires, genocide, abuse and colonial systems.”
She paired the album announcement with the release of a single, called Foxtrot.
The song starts with heavy percussion and the echo of a distant explosion. Tagaq almost screams as she repeats the words, “foxtrot, uniform, charlie, kilo; yankee, oscar, uniform” in a cadence like gunfire. The growl of throat singing can be heard underneath it all, sounding like a threat.
She is accompanied on the song by vocalist Damian Abraham.
The song “weaponizes the military alphabet into protest call sign,” the release said.
Tagaq has been busy over the past year.
She appeared in two episodes of the Netflix series North of North playing an Inuit sea goddess and is set to debut a play called Split Tooth: Saputjiji, based on her novel of the same name, at Vancouver’s Push Festival on Feb. 5.
She will also be on tour in Europe following the play’s debut, with stops in Hungary, Germany and the United Kingdom from Feb. 19 to March 6.
A publicist for Six Shooter Records told Nunatsiaq News that Tagaq was not available for an interview for this story.
The beluga and the musk ox dances with joy.
I assume it will be just as strange as the others.
My family and I are so happy for you, Tanya! You’re a great person with an enormous heart and unrivalled intellect. I can’t wait to check it out!