This week’s playlist is a continuation of our cross country journey we are going on this year, with a listen to Northern Notes. Today, July 9, is Nunavut Day so we are taking a detour up north instead of continuing our journey east. Back in the early days of OurBasement, we took this journey before and I thought it was time to take it again. On May 26 of 2017 we had a stop up North  and we are back in 2021 to hear what is new in the territories. I have updated that playlist, and added a few more that I found from various sources. The first 17 songs or so on the playlist are artists representing Nunavut with the remainder from the Yukon and Northwest Territories.

Traditional Inuit music is based around drums used in dance, music and storytelling, plus a vocal style known as katajjaq in Inuktut and throat singing in English. This music has become popular in Canada and abroad. The technical characteristics of Inuit music include story singing, complex rhythmic organization and a relatively small melodic range. Today, acoustic and electric guitars are now played everywhere in the territory, producing folk, country, pop and rock music in Nunavut with a distinctly northern artistic flair. Sounding as if it were perhaps invented specifically for another modern musical form adored by youth, the Inuktitut language is brilliantly suited for hip-hop lyrics! (Source: Indigenous Peoples Atlas of Canada)

There is both a Spotify version and a YouTube version for your listening pleasure. Enjoy some Northern Notes on this stop of our journey.