CTM is pleased to welcome Tanya Tagaq to Berghain for a hybrid concert and book reading.

The Inuk throat singer, avant-garde composer, and bestselling author is renowned as one of Canada’s most original and celebrated artists. Through guttural groans and deeply spiritual performances that reference industrial, metal, and electronica, she weaves traditional Inuit throat singing into present-day urgencies. On 3 July 2019, Tagaq will appear at Berghain for a reading of her acclaimed debut novel, Split Tooth, which “veers back and forth between the grittiest features of a small arctic town, the electrifying proximity of the world of animals, and ravishing world of myth.” The reading will gradually transform into a full-blown concert, where Tagaq’s formidable, dexterous vocals explore “a world where the distinctions between good and evil, animal and human, victim and transgressor, real and imagined lose their meaning, but the guiding power of love remains.”

Her 2014 record, Animism, sent shockwaves through the music world, astutely portraying a turbulent world on the brink of destruction. The album’s Polaris Music Prize victory marked a substantial shift in conversations around Indigenous artists, unsettling various assumptions and preconceived notions. With her follow up record, Retribution, Tagaq delivered her inimitable and powerful artistic vision to an even broader audience. Employing her singular approach to challenging static notions of genre and culture, the album saw Tagaq continue to grapple with the climate crisis, human rights, and colonialism’s persistent legacy. In 2019 she released Toothsayer, a 5-track EP accompanying the British National Maritime Museum’s “Polar Worlds” exhibit. The EP features Tagaq in concert with long-time percussionist Jean Martin and UK experimental electronic artist Ash Koosha.

Tagaq boasts a formidable slew of collaborators, which includes the likes of Björk, the Kronos Quartet, and Mike Patton. She is a member of the Order of Canada, winner of the Polaris Music Prize 2014 and various Juno awards, and recipient of multiple honourary doctorates. In the words of The Wire, “Tagaq projects sounds that carry the imprint of the body’s secret contours and recesses, delving far beyond personal utterance, out beyond human identity, to summon voices from the flesh cavity haunts of animal spirits and primal energies.”

A DJ set from Opium Hum opens the evening, before Morphine Records boss Rabih Beaini, otherwise known as Morphosis, plays a live set. While initially known for specialising in grainy, imaginative techno, Beaini has since telescoped in on key (often overlooked) voices in avant-garde electronic and outernational music.

Tanya Tagaq’s Berlin performance is supported by the Embassy of Canada.