A week or so ago I was watching Ray Mears’ Northern Wilderness, his new series, on BBC2, about the history of exploration in the wilderness and wintery northern reaches of Canada. In the episode I was watching, Mears visited with Inuit to hone his igloo building skills, as one does, and learn more about the people. Anyway, one segment covered katajjaq, or Inuit throat singing, and, I’ll be damned, if it wasn’t mesmerizing.
Sadly, I haven’t got an mp3 to share. However, there are plenty of videos on the Interwebs and here are two that show you just how interesting and rich katajjaq is. The first one features the infectious Billy Connolly being astounded by the two performers.
This one is nearly six minutes long and was, apparently, part of a video application for the Traditional Performer category for the 2008 Artic Winter Games, You need to watch the whole thing to see the variety of styles on display. Simply incredible.
Filed under: 100beats, Music Tagged: | Inuit Throat Singing
