the buff who fell to earthAhhhh forgot it was new Tagaq day!!! Only a couple songs are available on the Bandcamp without purchasing, but the entire thing is streaming elsewhere.
Tanya Tagaq - Saputjiji (2026)
Saputjiji, by Tanya Tagaq
11 track album
Tanya Tagaq
OMG, I'm jealous of anyone who gets to see this performance. If you're in Vancouver Feb 5, go see this and then tell me every single thing about it pleaz.
https://www.cbc.ca/arts/tanya-tagaq-split-tooth-saputjiji-9.7061811
AND new Tanya Taqaq album 'Saputjiji' also coming in March, new single "Foxtrot" up (but for some reason not on Bandcamp, at least yet)!
HarmonyThere's so much I could say about the new Rheostatics album... for now I'll just implore y'all to put this track on, lay down, close your eyes and let it take you places😌
The album was mostly improvised with lots of different collaborators, this track immediately got among my favorites simply because of Tanya Tagaq!!
Tasiq
1001 Other AlbumsToday is the halfway point of our current 6 Degrees series, connecting albums from The List. And, again, because we’re doing a bit of a Prince-theme, we’ll be picking out some fun Prince-connections in/below the set.
Okay, carrying on from where we left off last time…
6 Degrees of Separation: Bruce Dickinson to Explosions In The Sky
Bruce Dickinson – The Chemical Wedding (list number 509)
>> As noted in our feature on Tagaq’s album (which ended Part 3), she’s keen to someday cover Iron Maiden, whose frontman is Bruce Dickinson. Dickinson’s solo album contains both lyrics and artwork by the 18th/19th century English poet and painter William Blake…
Prince – For You (623)
…who the writer John Higgs delightfully compares at length to Prince in his piece in The Quietus called “Visionaries Across Time: The Shared Magic of Prince & William Blake“. …
Iggy And The Stooges – Raw Power (814)
…William Blake also pops up in Jim Jarmusch’s 1995 film Dead Man, as the main character, also named William Blake, may or may not be the reincarnation of the English poet. Dead Man features a cameo by Iggy Pop, who is regarded as the “godfather of punk”. …
Minor Threat – Minor Threat (609)
…And, if anyone could similarly be called the “godfather of hardcore” (or could command as much devotion from Henry Rollins), that would be Ian MacKaye, of Minor Threat and…
Fugazi – Repeater (422)
…Fugazi, whose tour for The Argument album featured the post-rock greats…
Explosions In The Sky – Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Die, Those Who Tell The Truth Shall Live Forever (73)
Explosions In The Sky. <<
Prince 6(ish)
This group of artists are a bit far removed from The Purple One, so the connections are tough for this set. Let me know in the comments if you know of any other connections!
- Iron Maiden and Prince both had a rigorous release schedule in the 80s and early 90s, with both releasing an album (and a hit album, at that) nearly every year. E.g., Iron Maiden’s 1st self-titled album came out the same year as Prince’s Dirty Mind (1980), as did Killers and Controversy (1981), The Number of the Beast and 1999 (1982), Powerslave and Purple Rain (1984), etc. (Prince didn’t have an 1983 album to match Maiden’s Piece of Mind, likely due to working on the Purple Rain film/album.) ((I feel like there should be an accompanying string of surveys on Mastodon asking people to pick their favorites from the above pairs…))
- The Swedish author and professor Per Nilsen has written music biographies on Prince as well as Iggy Pop and the Stooges (and David Bowie).
- While there’s no direct connection between Minor Threat and Prince, I found this Flavorwire article interesting that links the American hardcore scene with Prince by way of fellow-Minneapolis band Hüsker Dü (who is on The List, and who was signed to SST Records, the label of Greg Ginn of Black Flag, who Henry Rollins, Ian MacKaye’s bff, was the vocalist of from 1981 to 1985). Essentially, the author argues that location tied Prince and Hüsker Dü (as well as The Replacements) together just like Seattle, Detroit, and Memphis did for the bands that came from those cities:
- “Trying to separate the success of Prince and The Revolution from the impact the music of The Replacements and Hüsker Dü would go on to have smacks of punk rock elitism, and is almost like somebody saying that Nirvana shouldn’t count as part of the now-legendary Seattle scene simply because they got too big… Prince…and his lasting impact on his hometown’s music scene are just as vital as the influence attributed to a couple of punk bands he has probably never even listened to.”
- Fugazi’s Repeater came out the same year as Prince’s Graffiti Bridge (1990).
- Explosions In The Sky’s Those Who Tell the Truth… came out just a couple months before Prince’s Rainbow Children (2001), just a week prior to 9/11. Explosions In The Sky had some hub-bub around their album since the artwork had an airplane with the caption “This plane will crash tomorrow”, including one of the band members being detained by airport security. I wonder if the reception of Prince’s album would’ve been different if it wasn’t released during this time, as it seems that Rainbow Children is one of those that gets missed. ((Indeed, it should be on The List – I would add it myself, but I’ve cut myself off – somebody else want to submit it???))
- Prince died on Iggy Pop’s 69th birthday.
Tune in on Wednesday for Part 5, to see how we get from Explosions in the Sky to Rainbow! And in the meantime, tomorrow we will have a regular spotlight that provides a bit of a spoiler to Part 5…
https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/04/15/6-degrees-of-separation-part-4/
#1001OtherAlbums #6DegreesOfSeparation #BruceDickinson #ExplosionsInTheSky #Fugazi #HuskerDu #IanMacKaye #IggyPop #IronMaiden #MinorThreat #PerNilsen #Prince #Tagaq #TheStooges #WilliamBlake
Today is Part 3 (of 8) of our 6 Degrees game with The List. And, again, because we’re doing a bit of a Prince-theme, we’ll be picking out some fun Prince-connections below the set.
Okay, carrying on from where we left off last time…
6 Degrees of Separation: Led Zeppelin to Tagaq
Led Zeppelin – Untitled (or “Led Zeppelin IV“) (list number 780)
>> R.E.M.’s Automatic for the People was arranged by John Paul Jones, the bass player of Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin’s fourth album features guest vocals from Sandy Denny (on the track “The Battle of Evermore”), who was in…
Fairport Convention – Liege & Lief (485)
…Fairport Convention, whose Liege & Lief album was produced by Joe Boyd, who also produced a number of albums by Nico, who was in/on…
The Velvet Underground & Nico – The Velvet Underground & Nico (834)
…this album with The Velvet Underground. Lou Reed of The Velvet Underground would later become a close friend of Anohni of…
Anohni and The Johnsons – My Back Was A Bridge For You To Cross (969)
…Anohni and the Johnsons, and the song “Sliver of Ice” on this album was based on a conversation Anohni had with Reed during the final months before he left us. Anohni is also friends (and has collaborated with, e.g., here)…
Björk – Debut (760)
…Björk (see their amazing chat about My Back…, “Sliver of Ice”, and other topics here). Björk has also collaborated with (and produced the first album by)…
Tagaq – Auk / Blood (2)
Tanya Tagaq. <<
Prince 6
Here are some fun connections the above artists have to The Purple One:
- Prince was apparently a huge Led Zeppelin fan. Watch him absolutely shredding it while covering Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” here.
- Like The Velvet Underground and their song “Jesus“, Prince had a straight-up gospel song (“The Cross“, among various other songs with religious lyrics) that stood out as being quite, umm, different from the content of his other songs.
- Lou Reed’s final Spotify playlist had Prince’s song “Kiss” on it (on Part 1; see also Part 2).
- Producer/engineer/musician Mark Plati worked with both Prince (Graffiti Bridge) and Lou Reed (as well as David Bowie – who was in Part 1 of our 6 Degrees series – on Earthling).
- In a 1997 Mojo interview, Prince mentioned that he dug some of Björk’s work: “I crave great musicianship, and I don’t care who provides it. I’ve got no problems saying I dig D’Angelo. Or some of the things that Bjork does, the Cocteau Twins. Musicians, we’re family.”
- The 2007 compilation A Tribute to Joni Mitchell features both Prince (covering “A Case of You”) and (covering “The Boho Dance”) (as well as Sufjan Stevens and k.d. lang, who are both also on The List, as is Joni).
Tune in on Monday for Part 4, to see how we get from Tagaq to Explosions in the Sky!
https://1001otheralbums.com/2024/04/13/6-degrees-of-separation-part-3/
#1001OtherAlbums #6DegreesOfSeparation #Anohni #AnohniAndTheJohnsons #Björk #DavidBowie #FairportConvention #JoeBoyd #JohnPaulJones #JoniMitchell #LedZeppelin #LouReed #MarkPlati #Nico #Prince #REM #SandyDenny #Tagaq #TheVelvetUnderground #VelvetUnderground
Our next spotlight is on number 2 from The List, submitted by MetalheadDana.
Tanya Tagaq is a woman of immense talent. She’s the bestselling author of Split Tooth, a stunning piece of fiction/memoir set in 1970s Nunavut, written in both poetry and prose. Her English/Inuktitut picture book for children, It Bears Repeating, is set to come out in August this year. She’s an activist and overall exceptional human being, not afraid to speak her mind and call people, corporations, and governments out for the crimes they have committed against her people, others, and the environment. She co-directed and -wrote the documentary Ever Deadly, about her own life and career. And, more recently, she’s an actor, appearing in season 4 of True Detective, which she also provided the soundtrack for.
Which brings us to what she’s most known for, and why we’re here. Tanya Tagaq – often performing under the name “Tagaq” – is an award-winning experimental musician and composer, combining Inuit throat singing with improvisational vocals and various backdrops such as avant-garde classical violin, jazz, electronic beats, or nothing else at all. She’s collaborated with artists such as the Kronos Quartet, Buffy Sainte-Marie, and Björk. While she often performs at folk festivals, Tagaq’s music is truly the most metal thing you could possibly hear.
The first I heard Tagaq’s voice was on the first track of Björk’s 2004 vocal album and utter masterpiece, Medúlla. From day 1, Medúlla was instantly my favorite Björk album, not in small part due to Tagaq’s incredible guest vocals (especially on the track “Ancestors”, which reappears on Tagaq’s first LP, the 2005 Sinaa, co-produced by Björk). It would be nearly 10 years before we (myself and MetalheadDana) finally got to see Tagaq live, in an old movie theatre, improvising a soundtrack to the 1922 silent film Nanook of the North with the film playing on the screen behind. There we picked up copies of Sinaa and the 2008 Aux / Blood (or ᐊᐅᒃ, in Inuktitut syllabics). We got to chat with her for a few minutes while she signed our CDs, and she was giddy to mention that she was thinking about doing some covers for future albums, Pixies’ “Caribou” and possibly also some Iron Maiden. Soon after that performance, she released the 2014 Animism (which we’ll come back to another day since it also appears on The List).
While I typically listen to Tagaq’s later work, going back to Aux / Blood, I think this is perhaps her most accessible album in her discography. If you’re not familiar with Tagaq’s gripping music and/or Inuit throat singing in general, this is a great introduction. Fans of Faith No More will be happy to pick out Mike Patton’s guest vocals on the album. And, for Canadian folks from Edmonton/Calgary/Vancouver, make sure you check out “Force”, “Burst”, and “Construction”, which feature the brilliant beat-boxer Shamik (also of Too Attached, Shamik’s duo with his sister – another woman of immense talent – Vivek Shraya; the duo has also performed alongside Tagaq).
- Bandcamp: Tagaq – Aux / Blood
- Apple/Spotify/Youtube/etc.: Tagaq – Aux / Blood
- Discogs: Tagaq – Aux / Blood
- Website: Tanya Tagaq
- Wikipedia: Tanya Tagaq
[Alt text for accompanying image: The artwork is a black and white photo of the artist, with tree branches in front of her face. Album name is in red font along the bottom, with the artist’s name in white font directly underneath.]
#1001OtherAlbums #2000s #avantgarde #Bjork #Canada #experimental #Inuit #Inuk #MikePatton #ShamikBilgi #Tagaq #TanyaTagaq #throatSinging #TooAttached #TrueDetective #VivekShraya
World Concert HallRight now, chamber music from #Amsterdam: #Negrón #Wiancko #Mazzoli #Tagaq #Martynov and #Thelen https://buff.ly/3Xbr2qj #wch
In 15 minutes, chamber music from #Amsterdam: #Negrón #Wiancko #Mazzoli #Tagaq #Martynov and #Thelen https://buff.ly/3Xbr2qj #wch