Indigenous artists continued to break new ground at the 55th Juno Awards, held in Hamilton on March 29. The Juno Honouring Ceremony, presented the day before, featured a performance by Cree singer-songwriter Siibii, along with Allied Nation, Little Creek Singers and YB Nakota.
Aside from traditional and contemporary Indigenous music categories, Indigenous artists were represented in six other competitions. Inuit throat-singing duo PIQSIQ celebrated their first nomination for Global Music Album of the Year for their album Legends.
The recognition marked another milestone for sisters Tiffany Ayalik and Inuksuk Mackay, whose fusion of traditional practice with modern technology pushes the boundaries of contemporary soundscapes. While they long performed live with only their vocals and a looping effects station, this album was the first time they brought the tool into the studio.
“It helped capture that very dynamic magic that happens when we’re improvising live,” said Ayalik. “When your muse is fickle, you’re trying to capture the essence before it disappears. The essence of it is a lot more pure and in line with our live shows – that’s changed our lives really.”
They credit producer Alex Penney at Vancouver’s Monarch Studios for helping combine their dry vocal tracks with the looping pedal’s output, which was then chopped and modified to create their intricately layered sound.
Pronounced “pilk-silk”, PIQSIQ is named for the winds that appear to blow snow upwards to the sky. Their music is similarly mysterious and eerie, evoking the wintery darkness of their subarctic homeland.
Growing up in Yellowknife, the sisters maintained close ties with their cousins in Nunavut’s Kitikmeot and Kivalliq regions, who would send them cassette recordings of ancient throat singing, or katajjaq. During their trips out on the land, they bonded through katajjaq, not realizing until adulthood that the traditional practice had been nearly erased by colonialism.
After learning about their parents’ residential school experience and the systemic shaming, banning and punishment of Inuit culture, katajjaq became a radical act of decolonization. The music’s importance expanded to include political and historical conversations.
“We realized this isn’t just a fun pastime for us anymore,” Ayalik explained. “This is actually a potent intervention into a cultural reclamation. We started to take it a lot more seriously, actively seeking teachers who could mentor us.”
While the sisters performed katajjaq in the traditional way for many years, they eventually began evolving their sound to reflect “modern Inuit navigating modern times.” Since their 2018 debut Altering the Timeline, PIQSIQ has explored electronic textures, collaborations with various artists and even creating new instruments out of whale and caribou bones.
“When we’re performing, we often start with a traditional song and improvise on top of that in a way that feels honest and authentic to us,” said Mackay. “So, we have this ancestral sound and we’re also thinking about what Inuit futurism looks like. Inuit values are timeless.”
For their Legends album, PIQSIQ crafted eight pieces around traditional Inuit stories. They collected paintings, drawings, sculptures and carvings of Inuit culture and mythological beings from other Inuit artists to create visual slideshows of each legend. These were then projected in the studio to inspire their vocal responses.
The music video for “Mahaha: Tickling Demon” used motion capture technology to show how Mackay’s sons Desmond and Maccheus outsmart the demon through traditional Inuit games. The virtual reality format highlights how ancestral knowledge prepares youth for survival and resilience.
“My sons got to wear these funny suits with weird dots on them and run around this huge studio where they did Deadpool and Spiderman and Star Wars,” Mackay recalled. “It was a wonderful experience.”
Sharing these legends on social media inspired an exchange of stories across the Arctic. For their next album, the sisters asked Inuit youth for questions about wrestling with their identities in modern times. They then asked Mackay’s father to respond as a cultural mentor.
“There were some about the environment and how do I come out as queer to my grandparents,” Mackay said. “For young folks who don’t always have access to an Elder, this is an opportunity to have a surrogate in tough times when we need that grounded voice to help guide us.”
With growing interest in Inuit music, PIQSIQ is also increasingly scoring films. Following the animated feature Sunburnt Unicorn, they worked with Ariel Marx for Apple TV’s The Last Frontier and on Zacharias Kunuk’s latest film Wrong Husband. They accompanied the latter’s festival run with performances and panel discussions, most recently at Maoriland Film Festival in New Zealand.
As they work on a metal album with Nunavut-based guitarist Kendrick Bolt and prepare for an April 12 Vancouver show alongside childhood hero Susan Aglukark, PIQSIQ is bringing the North to the world and having fun along the way.
“Our hearts are with the North no matter how far we travel,” said Mackay. “Throat singing is a natural fit for so many music genres because it’s very rhythmic. Random pairings on a workshop stage at festivals are our favourite thing – some of the coolest stuff comes out.”