Track Of The Day: Tanya Tagaq – ‘Colonizer’

A powerful statement against centuries of colonisation aimed directly at the perpetrators, Canadian avant-garde artist Tanya Tagaq has shared her latest single ‘Colonizer’. Taken from her recent album Tongues, on which she explored themes of social and political exploitation with distinctive flair, the track is a commanding, brutal listen that reduces five hundred years of colonising history into four words: “Oh. You’re. Guilty. Colonizer.”

An award-winning improvisational singer, composer and best-selling author from Ikaluktutiak, Tagaq’s work has been recognised by the Order of Canada, Polaris Music Prize and the JUNO Awards. Described as “an original disruptor,” she confronts the horrors of inequality on a global and personal scale, seeking to erode the foundations of unjust systems through her pulverizing soundscapes, elastic vocals and spoken word. Her latest track ‘Colonizer’ epitomises these talents. Punctuated by Tagaq’s gasps for breath and the lyrical mantra “Oh. You’re. Guilty. Colonizer,” it ripples with righteous anger and defiance.

“Everyone is responsible for the system that is in place right now; those who benefit from the genocide of Indigenous people are still guilty,” Tagaq told The Line of Best Fit in a recent interview. She’s enhanced her message further in the potent accompanying video for ‘Colonizer’. Directed by Leah Fay Goldstein and Peter Dreimanis, the footage shows the destruction of the symbols and the perpetrators of the residential school system. You can donate to the Indian Residential School Survivors Society featured in the visuals here.

Watch the video for ‘Colonizer’ below.

Follow Tanya Tagaq on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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Track Of The Day: Kee Avil – ‘saf’

An intoxicating, claustrophobic listen that sharpens the senses, Montréal-based experimental artist and producer Vicky Mettler aka Kee Avil has shared her latest single ‘saf’. Taken from her debut album Crease, which is set for release on 11th March, the track unravels like a gratifying exhale, underscored by magnetic electronics and Avil’s intense, alluring vocals.

A guitarist, singer, producer and member of Sam Shalabi’s acclaimed Land Of Kush project, Mettler cut her teeth playing in various noise and improv outfits before fully fleshing out her new moniker Kee Avil. “Songwriting, to me, is like sculpting,” Mettler explains. “It stems from an initial word, emotion or sound, which I then build on, molding it into a more refined shape, glued into an artificial structure. Other times, my role is to peel it, scrape at its exterior, to reveal its natural state and its part within the whole.”

It’s this physicality behind the shaping of her sounds that makes Mettler’s music feel so visceral, especially in her new track ‘saf’. “Is this the same ache we all share? / can you feel it there under your ribs?” she probes over serpentine electronics, urging listeners to immerse themselves in the tense atmosphere she has created.

Following her self-titled EP released via Black Bough Records in 2018, Mettler’s debut album Crease was written over a period of three years, with each song representing “a certain moment in time, an emotion, exercise or spontaneous idea that creates its own world…built without consideration for the other.” With her razor sharp focus and disorientating blend of sounds and vocals, Mettler’s new full length offering looks set to be as spinetingling as her latest single.

Watch the video for ‘saf’ below.

Follow Kee Avil on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo Credit: Lawrence Fafard (Mask by Ariane Paradis)

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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WATCH: DEBBY FRIDAY – ‘FOCUS’

Inspired by her decision to fully embrace her creativity and push her talents to the limit, Nigeria-born, Vancouver-based audio-visual artist DEBBY FRIDAY has shared her latest single ‘FOCUS’. Full of jagged electronics and sultry, commanding vocals, the track is accompanied by a striking set of visuals featuring and co-directed by Friday and Ryan Ermacora.

“I wrote this song in 2019, when I first started thinking about writing an album and the possibility of pursuing my creative passions as my career was making itself known to me,” Friday explains about ‘FOCUS’. “I kept debating with myself, ‘do I want this? or do I not want this?’ It’s a heavy question. The video also speaks to this. The whole process was like undergoing some sort of fire baptism. It was difficult and chaotic and supernatural. I felt like I was the mountain, cracking open and spilling forth.”

Cauterizing her conflicting thoughts with impressive flair, Friday’s efforts have resulted in a distinctive sound and aesthetic. She elaborates on how the accompanying video was created: “Getting the logistics of everything together was the most stressful part. It’s not everyday that you have to figure out how to make an avalanche and take fire bullwhip cracking lessons. Thankfully, I had a really supportive crew the whole way through. It took a lot but I feel like this song and video marks a turning point for me that I can’t exactly name yet.”

Watch the video for ‘FOCUS’ below.

Follow DEBBY FRIDAY on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Photo credit: Laura Baldwinson

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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ALBUM: Lingua Ignota – ‘SINNER GET READY’

“And all that I’ve learned / is everything burns” laments Lingua Ignota aka Kristin Hayter on ‘Pennsylvania Furnace’, the fourth track on her latest album SINNER GET READY – an apt sentiment for a record that blazes with a unique orchestral agony.

Released via Sargent House, Hayter’s fourth full length offering is an emotional exorcism inspired by the severe brand of Christianity in rural Pennsylvania where she currently lives. Its strictness permeates her vision to the core; her lyrics, majestic hymn-like instrumentation and gothic aesthetic smoulder with a righteous thirst that can only be sated by the blood of Jesus – a recurring lyrical and visual motif on the album.

Whilst it’s clear that Hayter has made a distinct departure from the furious, visceral sounds of CALIGULA, her sensational vocals are still the lifeblood of SINNER GET READY. She uses her voice to devastating effect, harrowing up the soul with her effortless ability to switch from a soft, divine cry to a cord-ripping, desperate plea. She is like a one woman version of the chorus of ancient furies that saturate Greek mythology; Medea-like in her repulsion, relentless in the revenge she reeks upon the souls who cross her path.

From the unsettling, majestic keys of epic opener ‘The Order Of Spiritual Virgins’ on which she warns “Hide your children / hide your husband / I am relentless / I am incessant / I am the ocean” to the theatrical, cathedral-worthy organ on ‘I Who Bend The Tall Grasses’, Hayter’s furious summons often give the impression of a preacher who has lost their way. Her guttural, spitefully shouted lyrics “I don’t give a fuck / just kill him / you have to / I’m not asking” on the latter are matched by the violent imagery on ‘Repent Now Confess Now’ – “He will knock the breath from you / he will ram your eyes with glass” – all culminating to create a palpable sense of dread.

A vessel for exposing rage, hypocrisy and suffering; Hayter leaves no stone unturned. She blends self and social flagellation together effortlessly on three tracks that centre around the questionable sincerity of disgraced American Evangelist TV Preacher Jimmy Swaggart. The audio of his televised confession is layered over the instrumentation at the end of ‘The Sacred Linament Of Judgment’, featuring his “blood of Jesus'” remark which Hayter then uses as a lyrical backbone for the sombre ‘Perpetual Flame Of Centralia’. It’s bookended with ‘Man Is Like A Spring Flower’, which opens with the audio of an interview with the prostitute who brought Swaggart’s indiscretions to the surface, embellished by Hayter’s potent, destructive lyric “The heart of man is a furnace.”

With her archaic song titles, immersion into Christian iconography and distinctive vocal delivery, Hayter invites her listeners to dwell in the chaotic, divine abyss on SINNER GET READY. “Do you want to be / in hell with me?” she asks – if hell sounds like this, we’ll gladly walk into the flames. Even without a full understanding of the album’s religious context, SINNER GET READY provides a profound emotional release.

Follow Lingua Ignota on bandcamp, Spotify, Twitter, Instagram & Facebook

Kate Crudgington
@KCBobCut

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