David Dalle
Thursday October 8th, 2015 with David Dalle
Derek Charke's Tundra Songs for the Kronos Quartet and Tanya Tagaq

Today I present again a magnificent recording from Canadian composer Derek Charke in pieces commissioned for the Kronos Quartet and Tanya Tagaq. The title piece, "Tundra Songs" is an epic work evoking a year in the Arctic, from winter to winter. It is a 30 minute unbroken work with 5 internal movements entitled I. Ice, II. Water, III. Sedna's Song, IV. Lament of the Dogs, V. The Trickster Tulugaq. Besides the extraordinarily varied string quartet throughout, it features Tanya Tagaq's throat singing in three of the five movements, and storytelling by Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory reciting her version of the Greenlandic creation story of Sassuma Arnaa in the 3rd movement. It also features extensive use of recorded sounds, most of them made in the Arctic by Derek Charke. The electroacoustic sounds are not providing a romanticized, idyllic view of the Arctic, but the sound of the Arctic now: not just the sounds of nature, but also machinery, snowmobiles, people, and the haunting howls of stray dogs. This work is extremely moving and intense, it grips you and leaves you breathless. Wonderful.