Gig Review: Tanya Tagaq At Institute Of Contemporary Art
A performance that moves from warmth to something far more primal, Tanya Tagaq turns the ICA into a space of total immersion where voice, body and atmosphere blur into one overwhelming force.
Bantering the crowd on stage at London’s ICA, Tanya Tagaq is surprisingly down to earth. The musician, born and raised in Canada’s northern territory of Nunavut, informs us that she’s able to apply for a UK passport, on account of a parent’s heritage. Someone in the crowd, browbeaten by dismal politics and more dismal weather, tells her not to bother. Tagaq laughs coyly: ‘I feel like everyone hates their country these days’.
This affable figure in a stylish gown is at odds with the confrontational, often unsettling presence which leaps out of Tagaq’s music. The singer, author, indigenous activist and visual artist combines Inuk throat singing with raw percussion, strings and off-beat electronics. Traditionally a vocal game involving two women facing each other and inhaling/exhaling, Tagaq has developed an experimental, solo version of Katajjaq. Her tracks unfold like a bloody fight for survival, blood pumping in the icy cold. This soundworld provided a perfect score for the HBO’s True Detective: Night Country, a supernatural tinged crime thriller set in the long polar night.
Tagaq introduces her on-stage ensemble, cellist Jeffrey Ziegler and drummer Jean Martin, before politely suggesting we emulate their last performance – Berghain – and keep our phones away. This gets an enthusiastic cheer, even from those already adjusting their zoom. The lights drop and there’s a whiplash change in the room. The easy-going mood is purged by a wave of tension and the magnetism of Tagaq’s singing, as she slowly builds in intensity from a murmuring start. The band are similarly tentative, playing like an animal prodding at the room to get the size of it.
Tagaq’s performance is a single unbroken composition which travels through some tracks off her new album ‘Saputjji’, alongside work from previous records like 2022’s ‘Tongues’ and 2014’s Polaris prize-winning ‘Animism’. These records explore themes of indigenous erasure, resistance and ecology. This evening, improvisation provides the connective tissue which holds everything together.
Tagaq has a gentle and warm singing voice, used more freely on the new material than previously, which sharpens the contrast with the experimental Katajjaq sections. From a deep guttural roar to an infantile coo or choked panting like a panic attack descending, Tagaq’s throat singing is impossibly malleable. Her voice captures an entire universe of emotion, violence and vulnerability, wordless signifiers of life from cradle to grave.
The instruments accompanying Tagaq pivot between sparse, cinematic soundscapes which allow her vocals to take centre stage, and furious flourishes which mimic her raw physicality and aggression. There’s a fluent symbiosis between the three musicians on stage. Tagaq spends the mid-section of the set laying on the stage, meaning we can hear her – chirping, bird-like, croaking and growling – but not see her. A disembodied voice becomes a spirit possessing the room.
This all amounts to an electrifying sense of immersion. The world outside of the room totally melts away. Tagaq’s closest parallels here, in my experience, would include Lingua Ignota, Death Grips and even Godspeed you! Black Emperor. Visceral music which finds transcendence in savagery. Through a harsh, uncompromising intensity in their performances, these artists, in the words of figurative painter Francis Bacon, ‘unlock the valves of feeling and therefore return the onlooker to life more violently’.
On a projector screen behind Tagaq, grainy footage depicts scenes of life in the frozen Arctic. Shots of natural landscapes and wildlife are interspersed with igloo building and mining infrastructure. One scene shows polar bears prowling a parking lot, concrete underfoot instead of snow. We see wolves roaming, and later, skinned for their pelts, red blood flecked across white. These interactions between humans and nature underscore the emotional force of the drama on stage.
None of this ever feels like avant-garde indulgence; the front sections of the crowd are stirred to move surprisingly often. It’s not quite dancing but a compulsive animation of limbs when Tagaq’s vocalisations and the instruments settle into a rhythmic, repetitive stomp. It has a strangely intoxicating effect. As the final improvised section climbs to fever pitch, I realise I have no idea how long the set has been going on. It suddenly feels like 3am. This is club music, regurgitated.
Tagaq eventually picks up two lethal looking blades and scrapes them together; the set ends with the hair-raising screech of metal on metal. She suddenly seems to return to herself, as surprised as the audience by what has just taken place. The crowd lingers after the performers take a bow and slink away. You can hear a collective exhale of breath, the only response to something so escaping of words.