New music comes, sometimes, from places you don\u2019t expect. And, let\u2019s be honest, who expects it from distant Iqaluit, the capital city of the territory of Nunavut \u2014 a city that\u2019s far closer to the Arctic Circle than it is to Toronto, Ottawa or Montreal.<\/p>\n
Echoes Of\u2026 is a collective of musicians and producers who live in Iqaluit. Echoes Of\u2026 is an important new album. Echoes Of\u2026 is just that: echoes of a place, of isolation, of soundscapes, of the collaborations of artists, and of half a dozen genres of music.<\/p>\n
Yes, there\u2019s ambient music here. Moments of what they used to call \u201cnew age\u201d music. Tastes of driving rock and roll and wispy folk. You can hear traces of a language spoken by fewer than 20,000 people in the entire world. You can dance to some of it, dream to most of it. And sink into the sounds of a colder winter than most Canadians will ever experience, as well as the warmth of close-knit communities closer to the North Pole than you are.<\/p>\n
The genesis of Echoes Of\u2026 came in COVID times. In Edmonton, musician, singer and songwriter Andrew Morrison was with his mother as she transitioned from this world to the next. \u201cIt was a time to mourn her death and yet celebrate her life,\u201d he recalls. \u201cAnd the only way I knew how to do that was to create music.\u201d With his children, as they sat with their grandmother, Andrew sang a final song for her \u2014 and \u201cAnaanaga\u201d eventually became the first track (and the first single release) from the debut album from Echoes Of\u2026<\/p>\n
The music scene in Iqaluit is \u2014 to quote a visitor \u2014 small but mighty. Musicians there all know each other, participate in each other\u2019s bands, produce each other\u2019s music, share each other\u2019s audiences. Collaboration is the watchword, and this was the way Echoes Of\u2026 came together \u2014 both as a band and as a recording project. With Morrison as the lead vocalist on most tracks, musicians and fellow producers Terry Uyarak, James Ungalaq, Ivaana, Naja O and Jace Lasek joined forces to give the project heart and soul and a variety of sounds and textures. They all brought different experiences to the project \u2014 Ungalaq works with Northern Haze, a pioneering rock band, and Lasek founded Besnard Lakes, a well-known Montreal-based indie group. Uyarak is a former circus performer and an established singer-songwriter; Ivaana is also an award-winning songwriter.<\/p>\n
And musically, Echoes Of\u2026 does cover a lot of ground. Most of the vocals are sung in Inuktitut, but you can hear traces of soft folk, rock, rhythms and \u201cnew age\u201d ambience in the layered sounds of voices, instruments and percussion. It\u2019s atmospheric, sometimes dreamy and almost hypnotic. And, yes, you can see yourself moving to some of this music in a dark, pulsing dance club.\u00a0\u00a0Most people will never find themselves in the high Arctic. There\u2019s no way you can drive there. Flights from Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton are ridiculously expensive. And Iqaluit, with a population of a little over 9,000 people, is 2300 kilometers from Toronto, now the fourth largest city in\u00a0 North America. And the traditions of the North \u2014 including seal hunting, throat singing, dog sledding and more \u2014 are vastly different from life in mostly urban big city Canada.<\/p>\n
But Echoes Of\u2026 makes it possible, now, to understand \u2014 to feel \u2014 a vibrant, lively, strong and resilient culture. And isn\u2019t that what the best music is created to do: take you away to feel, think, dance, and carry you to different places\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"people-type":[46],"yoast_head":"\n