Vocal Range

Riit’s new album brings throat singing to the nightclub

- CARLY LEWIS

DEEP IN THE MAZY grey passages of Toronto’s CBC headquarters, Nunavut-born throat singer Riit is gleaming. She’s in studio to record some songs from her debut album, Ataataga. From my perch in the sound booth, I listen as she and her co-singer, Alexia Galloway-Alainga, move between luscious Inuktitut harmonies and the commanding thunder of throat singing — their vocals steadied by the pulse of electronic beats. This fusion feels energizing: tradition meets a party scene on a zesty TV melodrama.

Inuit throat singing typically features two people who alternate between quick, rhythmic breaths to produce sonic layers, from high-pitched tones to hoarse, guttural expressions. As Riit and Galloway- Alainga work through the tracks, they switch back and forth: Riit often takes the lead on the melody, while Galloway- Alainga anchors the song with solo throat singing. Sometimes throat singing is the focus, sometimes it’s the structure. At the end of the album’s title song, the backing music falls away, and Riit and Galloway- Alainga face off, allowing the listener to hear the power of Inuit throat singing on its own. For almost a minute, the singers intricately counter each other. The song ends only when they erupt into laughter. “I almost burped!” exclaims Riit. She makes a tilted hand motion to her manager, signaling that she’d like the wine brought in from her dressing room.

For the taping, Riit and Galloway- Alainga selected bright-green skirts that they found at an eccentric Queen West dress shop — the colour glows in the darkness of the studio, its shade as likely to be found on a club-district tube top as within a wave of the Northern Lights. I later search a colour wheel until I find the exact hue: Arctic Lime.