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Ep. #132: Christine Fellows

Christine Fellows lives in Winnipeg, MB and is one of the world’s best songwriters. She is an adventurous and compelling storyteller and a gifted musician who brings her work into other disciplines for really cool collaborations. Her sixth album also includes her first book of poetry; both are called Burning Daylight and were released by ARP Books on September 23. Here, Christine and I discuss things like how good looking Kyle at Milagro Mercer Mexican Cantina in Toronto is, secret menu items and difficult customers, good Toronto food areas and bikeability, the sparseness of Burning Daylight, the drums, the influence of writer/Klondike chronicler/renaissance man Jack London, the short story “To Build a Fire,” the Dawson City Music Festival songwriter’s residency, curling clinics and natural ice, rickety planes in the Yukon Territory, the gold rush and men, Women of the Klondike, the song “To Build a Fire,” we are full, our budgies Pickles and Buddy, things to know about budgies, Marianne Moore and her bathtub alligator, cats and computers, Gary the cat, I miss Buddy, sled dogs, celebration and adaptation, growing up in Kelowna, a drum kit and a punching bag, reading and remembering, the Humber College jazz program and the University of Guelph philosophy and english departments, that fucking Stephen Harper, meeting John K. Samson, couples who consult each other about their art, working in Nunavut and the Northwest Passage, how the Inuit people are oppressed, getting into the world of poetry, a new show with Shary Boyle, ARP Books, Jason Tait lives in Winnipeg again, the spoken word song “The Gold-Seekers,” and then it’s adios.

Related links: christinefellows.com arpbooks.org vishkhanna.com

Christine Fellows and Pickles

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Categories
News Podcast

Ep. #65: Tanya Tagaq

Tanya Tagaq is a truly singular artist who hails from the Nunavut territory in northern Canada. Though renowned as an Inuit throat singer who has collaborated closely with Björk and Kronos Quartet, Tagaq makes music that absorbs and reflects many genres and is impossible to pigeonhole. 2014 will see the release of her long-awaited follow-up to 2008’s acclaimed album Auk/Blood and on Saturday Feb. 8, she returns to Guelph for a double-bill with Timber Timbre as part of Hillside Inside. Here, Tagaq and I discuss why people south of Nunavut are being kind of pathetic about this whole Polar Vortex thing, her relationship with Guelph, why her last album reflected a passive period while her forthcoming one will be more aggressive, her plans to make electronic and metal music soon, her new album’s tone, fracking, Neutral Milk Hotel, the weird transcendence of underground culture, how to express opinions about politics as a vocalist without using words, her opinion of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, her new album’s title and artwork, some stories behind her yet-to-be-released songs, why her new album doesn’t have many special guests but her next album will, whether she’s concerned about tokenism or the way people have distorted or misinterpreted her work, how her story and an infamous ex-manager inspired her friend Geoff Berner’s hilarious new novel Festival Man, her upcoming show at Carnegie Hall, her relationship with Björk, why Buffy Sainte-Marie makes her cry, the song “Fire ~ Ikuma,” and more.

Related links: isuma.tv/tagaq hillsidefestival.ca vishkhanna.com

Tanya Tagaq lying down sm

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