Elisapie offers up an ethereal personal journey in the form of her new album Inuktitut. She will also be playing two unmissable shows in Los Angeles next month at Bardot on October 23rd and Gold Diggers on October 25th to celebrate the release. All ten tracks cover a variety of iconic rock and pop songs — ones she grew up listening to in her home village of Salluit — which she reappropriates into stunning Inuit ballads.
Guided by memories of uplifting joy and exceptional sorrow, the songs across Inuktitut capture the poignant rapture with which music sears itself into such moments. Imbuing them with an ardent emotional clarity and magic that Elisapie summons via her dually haunting and ecstatic vocals. Yet it’s her articulation of grief and heart-wrenching loss that provides the album’s most devastatingly beautiful expressions.
With “Sinnatuumait” she transforms “Dreams” by Fleetwood Mac into a quieting slow-burn crescendo, pulsating rhythmically with warbling strings and powerful percussion. Weaving her luminous words through the somber melody as an exultant memorial to her older brother, Sailasie, whose untimely and tragic death left an immense hole in both her and her mother’s hearts.
“Qimatsilunga” — a cover of Queen’s “I Want to Break Free” — similarly conjures up the times she spent dancing with her cousin Tayara before he took his life when she was just a teenager. Mingling an unbearable sadness with radiant memories of his bold movements and gently eloquent femininity, the song becomes a profoundly painful yearning for escape. While on the healing horns that grace “Qaisimalaurittuq” (feat. The Westerlies), the Pink Floyd song “Wish You Were Here” is used to mourn and survive the many young lives of cousins and friends lost in her village.
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But Elisapie also recounts moments of soul-vitalizing hope and love. “Uummati Attanarsimat” turns Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” into a resplendent tribute to the magical dance hall get-togethers she’d revel in with her cousins while the grown-ups gambled away.
While a cover of Cyndi Lauper’s soaring pop ballad “Time After Time” is reworked as “Taimangalimaaq” into a fond ode to her aunt Alasie, who helped the bridge the generational gap between her mother and provided a space in her home to dance to euphoric pop of the ’80s and ’90s. Capturing all the galvanizing beauty of the original with its strident and glowing melodics.
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See Elisapie in Los Angeles at Bardot on October 23rd and Gold Diggers on October 25th.
Visit Elisapie on their website, TikTok, and Instagram to stay updated on new releases and tour announcements.
Words: Steven Ward
Listen to Inuktitut the new album from Elisapie below!
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