Miguel Santos, the creative director of Red Orange, participates in the third edition of RadiaLx, Portugal’s unique festival dedicated to radio art. An International Radio Art Festival happening in Lisbon on 01-03 July 2010, it will include 3 x 57 minutes special programmes of Sleeping Dogs Lie, an ambient music programme made by Miguel Santos for Resonance FM.
This year, RadiaLx focuses exclusively on radio art and will feature three days of a special, non-stop, broadcast on Rádio Zero (local frequency of 99.0MHz in Lisbon) and will also be streamed worlwide. It comprises site-specific projects, streams from all over the world and live shows, as well as broadcasts of the most contemporary and inventive radio art works. Workshops, roundtables, interventions, exhibitions and performances will provide an in-depth showcase of live events in the hope of bringing listeners, students and practitioners into a forum of collaboration and direct engagement with the radio field.
Tanya Tagaq with Cris Derksen (cello) and Michael Red (DJ)
Recorded in Puebla, Mexico, May 1st 2010
Thanks to Festival Barroquisimo and Miguel Angel Valdes Alavez of Nexos Producciones
What We Eat: Inuit throat-singer Tanya Tagaq, and Cannes-winning filmmaker Zacharias Kunuk, talk back to Brigitte Bardot and anti-sealhunting lobby on the eternal reality of hunting.
Selected for Sundance 2010, Toronto International Film Festival, Best Short, imagineNATIVE Film Fest 2009…
Tungijuq is more of a short film than a music video. It is a thought-provoking meditation on the seal-hunt and what it means to the traditional way of life. Tanya created the mystical, form-shifting fantasy and filmmakers Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphael brought the idea to life. Jesse Zubot and producer Juan Hernandez joined Tanya to create the music and the seven minute film includes an appearance by Cannes-winning actor Zacharias Kunuk. Tungijuq is a cinematic and musical expression of the organic and indisputable reality of hunting in Inuit culture. The work was produced by Kunuk Cohn Productions and Igloolik Isuma Productions.
The Journal of Musicis not like any other music magazine. It is a magazine of ideas as much as it is a magazine of music. Now in its fifth issue, their writers are leading musicians and composers who are creating a new conversation on musical life today. Contemporary, classical, jazz, traditional, rock, pop, folk, alternative and more – they cover all genres. Distributed in Ireland, the UK and major cities in Europe, The Journal of Music also has subscribers in over twenty-five countries. To order The Journal of Music visit www.journalofmusic.com/subscribe. As they say, intelligent writing on musical life.
They published an article about Miguel Santos, director of Red Orange, on their Oct/Nov 2009 issue.
Both Tanya Tagaq concert at Cafe Oto in February and the London International Festival of Exploratory Music (LIFEM) at Kings Place in November were amongst the live concert highlights of 2009 for MusicalCriticism.com (the new source for concert and opera reviews, articles and interviews on the web).
Tungijuq is more of a short film than a music video. It is a thought-provoking meditation on the seal-hunt and what it means to the traditional way of life. Tanya created the mystical, form-shifting fantasy and filmmakers Félix Lajeunesse and Paul Raphael brought the idea to life. Jesse Zubot and producer Juan Hernandez joined Tanya to create the music and the seven minute film includes an appearance by Cannes-winning actor Zacharias Kunuk. Tungijuq is a cinematic and musical expression of the organic and indisputable reality of hunting in Inuit culture. The work was produced by Kunuk Cohn Productions and Igloolik Isuma Productions.
Tanya narrated and provided music for Dianne Whelan’s documentary, This Land. The film documents Dianne’s experience joining the sovereignty patrol in the Canadian High Arctic with the Canadian Rangers. Their mission was to travel over two-thousand-kilometres by snowmobile from Resolute to the Canadian Forces Station Alert, and plant a Canadian flag on the way at Ward Hunt Island. The film includes incredible and rare photography of the disappearing ice shelf and reflects on Canada’s history and sovereignty in the North, the impact of climate change on the Arctic, and Inuit culture. Whelan’s book, This Vanishing Land: A Woman’s Journey to the Canadian Arctic will be released by Harbour Publishing in October and includes a forward by Tanya. www.caitlin-press.com
’’Writhing and clutching her chest as if in emotional and physical pain one moment, and then in sensual joy the next, Tagaq cajoled and regaled in a variety of animal grunts, guttural gasps, cries and whispers. It was a lyrically ambiguous vocalese, most reminiscent of vocal-technique expanders such as Diamanda Galás and Yoko Ono. Modest usage of digital-delay filters further extended the dramatic effects. Appropriately, Amendola and Zubot’s accompaniment was far-reaching yet discreetly pitched against Tagaq’s primal vocal outpourings, employing a free-jazz-type range of methods far outside conventional modes of playing. Amendola’s rattles and explosive tom-tom thumps were run through an array of sampling/delay filters, as was the high-tension violin and viola work of Zubot. David Harrington of the Kronos Quartet calls Tagaq ’’the Jimi Hendrix of Inuit throat singers’’ and the analogy is spot-on. Like Hendrix, Tagaq seeks to elicit the valuable, primitive unconscious — the internal made external — that lies dormant and untapped in us all. Yet, as with Hendrix, it was the future-leaning, musically avant-garde approach she took in drawing out these primordial impulses that was the evening’s biggest thrill.’’ (LA Times, August 9, 2009)
EUROPEAN PREMIERE: Three of Canada’s most provocative creative musicians with backgrounds in varied and complementary styles and traditions.
Tanya Tagaq, from Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, has pioneered a contemporary form of Inuit throat singing, which is traditionally done by two women, so that it functions in solo and in unconventional collaborative settings. Tagaq has performed and recorded widely, but is perhaps best known for her work with Björk during concert tours and on the 2004 recording, Medúlla.
Jean Martin is an energetic and creative force in Toronto’s music scene as a percussionist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, engineer, and producer. Martin runs Barnyard Records which, in a short time, has become one of the leading creative music labels in North America and features recordings by, among many other groups, Barnyard Drama, a multifaceted collaboration that hinges around his highly sympathetic partnership with creative vocalist, Christine Duncan.
Vancouver violinist and multi-instrumentalist Jesse Zubot’s career is similarly varied, and includes performance, composition, and production for his independent record label, Drip Audio. He came to prominence in acoustic roots groups Zubot & Dawson and The Great Uncles of the Revolution, but is virtually unlimited stylistically as an instrumentalist. Like Martin and Tagaq, he brings the rare combination of extraordinary sensitivity, technical excellence, and radical imagination to this promising pan-Canadian creative music summit.
“Remember the old ad campaign for Memorex cassette tapes, with the guy in chair being blown away by the sound? You may wish to strap yourself in for the concert featured in this edition of The Signal, as you may have a similar experience. The concert features the improvising trio of Jean Martin, Jesse Zubot, and Tanya Tagaq. Their performance was a tour de force (literally). Tanya Tagaq led the trio in an incredibly powerful and emotional journey, featuring her trademark throat-singing. Sensual, primordial, beautiful, terrifying.” Laurie Brown – CBC Radio 2
Laurie Brown of the CBC aired an incredible performance of Tanya, along with Jesse Zubot and Jean Martin, at the Guelph Jazz Festival on her program The Signal last month and lucky for all of us who weren’t there it is available to stream online. For the full program visit: http://www.cbc.ca/radio2/programs/thesignal/thesignallistenagain/2009/09/28/saturday_september_26.html
Tanya Tagaq at London International Festival of Exploratory Music (LIFEM), Thursday, 05 November 09:
In recent years, a growing number of Japanese musicians have appeared on the UK music scene, performing at prestigious festivals, thanks in part to the enthusiasm of certain promoters. This recent popularity has been attributed to the uniqueness and versatility of Japanese music and musicians, appealing to the desire of music fans to experience something new and original.
For this event, the Japan Foundation has invited UK-based Japanese artist, DJ Scotch Egg, who has gained a reputation for mixing music from techno-related genres, including gabber and chiptunes, to talk about his musical career and artistic philosophy. He will be accompanied by Franck Stofer, of the artist agency, Sonore. Franck has been a passionate advocate of the creativity of contemporary Japanese music, and will share his views on the state and nature of the Japanese music scene as seen by a non-native living in Japan and working as part of the Japanese music industry. The evening’s proceedings will be chaired by Alan Cummings, Freelance Writer for music magazine, The Wire.
This event is organised in association with the London International Festival of Exploratory Music (LIFEM) which is committed to exciting music from every conceivable genre and origin, while continually challenging musical boundaries. DJ Scotch Egg will be showcased as part of this year’s LIFEM lineup, together with two other Japanese musicians, Oorutaichi and Midori Hirano on 7 November at Kings Place.
As well as complementing the performances by these three Japanese artists on 7th November, this event also provides an opportunity to learn more about Japan’s exciting and innovative contemporary musical culture.
Here’s LIFEM’s third podcast… before, during and after the festival takes place – 04-07 Nov 09 – a series of monthly enhanced podcasts will be available for you to enjoy. They will include features such as interviews with the festival organisers and the artists taking place in the festival, latest news, exclusive music and much more. We hope you enjoy them.
