Saputjiji, the new album from Tanya Tagaq, opens with a series of blood-curdling screams. “Fuck war,” she bellows, over and over, delivering each word with the seismic force of an Arctic cryoseism. Tagaq’s paroxysm of fury is brutally cathartic — a vicious rebuke to the widespread moral apathy and cowardice of our current moment, from tepid protest songs to mealy-mouthed pleas to keep politics out of art. As missiles rain death from the sky across the Middle East, her words are a galvanizing blast of icy wind, stinging our eyes and forcing them to adjust their focus.
This is, of course, completely on brand for Taqag, a multidisciplinary Inuk artist whose work has always been grounded in radical politics, and whose art has always coursed with…

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