This album…

…

…

…is just…

…

…

…

How much of the world’s troubles do you put down to overpopu…

I’ll save that rant for another entry

 

I feel sorry for Eskimos

+2

Well, more specifically I feel sorry for the

Iñupiats and Yupik Eskimo people, as at some point- and for some unknown and bizarre reason <can something be both ‘unknown’ and ‘bizarre’? If you knew what the reason was it may well be very reasonable- Ed> <is ‘reasonable’ the opposite of ‘bizarre’?-Ed>

 

You know what? I’m starting this again:

 

I feel sorry for Eskimos, specifically the Iñupiat and Yupik people, because at some point we all decided that actually ‘Eskimo’ was an offensive and pejorative term, so it was announced in 1988 by Pat Sharp on his weekly world propaganda broadcast that we should from that point on only refer to the funny little snow people as ‘Inuits’

+4

Thing is, the Inuits are actually only one particular group of Eskimos, and those poor Iñupiats and Yupiks have had to endure being called by the name of a completely different group of people, like if it was suddenly decided that to call someone ‘European’ was offensive, so that the politically correct way to refer to people from the continent was ‘Moldovans’

-1

Jesus, there’s an NPR article on it because of course there’s an NPR article on it that doesn’t sufficiently explain it to me, if any Eskimos/Inuits/Iñupiats/Yupiks are reading this I sincerely hope you’ll get in touch, as being confused about racial identifications is literally the worst mental state a Social Justice Cluck Snowflake like myself can twist themselves into

-2

Tagaq actually is an Inuit, so she’s presumably part of the Eskimo 1% that won’t confuse me too much, and she has managed to concoct a record that honestly contains music in it that I have never before heard the like of

+20

I can count on my fingers the amount of times I’ve heard a piece of music and literally not known what it was. It’s the stupefying sense I got of the boundaries of the world not being at all the distance that I previously trusted, when I first heard Dizzee Rascal’s I Luv U or Fuckbuttons’ Ribs Out or the utter brazen nonsense of Robbie Williams’s Rudebox and was shocked at what some people are able to conceive and translate into music. ‘Retribution’ is an entire freaking album of those moments

+6

 

When I first heard the record my first instinct was to Google the artist immediately to find out exactly what this sound was, as I could make out a woman’s voice but was confused by the guttural growl often underlying it, like this ‘Tanya’ person was seemingly in duet with the reanimated zombie of George Harrison barking through the throat cancer

+8

Both these noises are Tanya Tagaq, and based on this introduction Inuit throat singing is the most horrifying and disturbing sound on Earth

+6

You’ve got a friend who’s into ‘World Music’, haven’t you? She’s always making beaded necklaces while she nods her head to Peruvian Nostril Jazz. Buy her this record to play in her Scented Pixie Bracelet shop, then watch her scream in terror, never sleep again and immediately join the National Front in order to keep these people out

+4

This is by far and away (cough) this year’s most shocking album, and I seriously wouldn’t play it before bed

+7

 

There are moments and movements on this work of unquestionable genius where I start to think this is one of the best records I’ve heard recently, but my lack of a frame of reference makes me doubt my judgement. I’ve never heard an Inuit throat singing record before, if you know the genre is this actually as dull and unimaginative as The Stereophonics?

+0

 

But, like I recommended Chinese Breakfast

as the record of 2016 most people are likely to enjoy, I’d say there isn’t a record released (cough) this year that I’d consider a more essential listen than Tagaq’s: this needs to be heard to be believed and, possibly, understood

+8

It’s getting dark. I’m turning the record off…

-3

 

Metacritic: +80

Length: 47 minutes,

but I’m not taking any points off her, she knows what she’s doing far more than I could ever comprehend

Number of AMAZING songs: 0 :

But, Like, Is The Whole Album Just Fucking Amazingly Bonkers? Yes! (+50)

Is the last song just the first track but played on Ukulele? No -1

Total 223

https://tanyatagaq.bandcamp.com/