Visionary Inuit sonic storytellers PIQSIQ releases new album, Legends
The acclaimed Inuit throat singing duo PIQSIQ (pronounced “pilk-silk”), comprised of sisters Tiffany Ayalik and Inuksuk Mackay, has never shied away from grand concepts and innovative ideas. On their 2021 album Live From Christ Church Cathedral, their choice of recording venue symbolized a cultural reclamation in response to how The Church, in collaboration with the Canadian government, had essentially wiped out the practice of traditional throat singing along with many other forms of Indigenous song and dance by the 1950s.
On the new PIQSIQ album Legends, Tiffany and Inuksuk again make a powerful statement in crafting eight pieces around beloved figures from Inuit culture, with textural tracks at the beginning and end to welcome you into the experience and gently place you back into your reality—some well-known and celebrated, and others more obscure but no less fascinating. The record was tracked at Monarch Studios in Vancouver with producer Alex Penney. All vocals and percussion were done by PIQSIQ with additional accompaniment and production by Alex Penney.
“We wanted to honour our traditional stories—narratives that are not just entertainment, but fundamental to Inuit identity,” Tiffany says. “These legends have long been how we pass on critical teachings: How to stay safe on the land, how to live in the right relationship with each other, with the animals, and with the spirit world. These are stories of survival, respect, and deep connection to place.”
Inuksuk adds about their process, “We created visual slideshows for each legend and sourced historic and contemporary Inuit artworks that depicted these beings. While recording, we projected these images in the studio, and then sang to what we saw and felt. It was deeply immersive and visual; we let the visuals guide our vocal responses.”
Each piece in Legends is a narrative journey, causing the listener to feel as if they are entering a portal in real time. PIQSIQ’s longstanding commitment to improvisation, something the sisters have previously struggled to harness in the studio, was adapted for Legends by recording live, capturing and crafting vocals in a Boss RC-505 Loop Station. Using this technique allowed them to achieve the best of both worlds—the dynamism of live performance with the precision of modern production.
Accompanying the album will be an innovative motion-capture video for the track “Mahaha: Tickling Demon.” According to the stories, Mahaha haunts the land and tickles people to death—if you are found frozen with a smile on your face, it was likely the work of Mahaha. The characters appear to be part of an alternate reality, perhaps that of a VR game, where Mahaha shows up unexpectedly.
In all, Legends marks a major step forward in PIQSIQ’s evolution, from the use of traditional Inuit drums (qilaut) and other forms of percussion to developing sonic storytelling skills that bring ancient characters and teachings into a modern immersive and emotionally resonant context.
“Each song is its own mini-journey—epic in scale, yet tightly composed,” Inuksuk says. “This album feels like the purest synthesis of who we are as artists, because it brings us full circle in drawing on the stories that shaped us as children and reimagining them through the lens of our lives today. By reconnecting with that sense of wonder, play, and cultural memory, we were able to create something deeply honest and rooted in who we are.”