May Record Club nominations - Indigenous people

A Tribe Called Red, "We Are the Halluci Nation"

From Canada, 2016. The group itself now goes by this album name.

Two people called the “[ethnic group] Björk” not so much because they sound like but because they have amazing, distinctive voices (probably also bc they also have kind of a black-haired cute look). Both come from different cultures of throat-singing, though I don’t think it’s the dominant mode in each album:

Tanya Tagaq, Tongues. I get the feeling she really hates being called the “Inuit Björk” and this is a nice angry album. The Inuit throad singing of her earlier albums (I think around 2014 was when she first got more mainstream attention) is used more sparingly here and there’s more of her sweet-but-very-menacing regular voice, plus more sophisticated, subtler production. It’s a good one for “subtext is for cowards” (and in English), moving away from the sort of conventional “ethnic themes” while still being grounded there.

Namgar, Nayan Navaa. I first heard of her as the “Mongolian Björk” but she’s an ethnic Buryat, a closely related ethnicity that’s native to southern Siberia (there’s a pretty strong cultural kinship and commonality, plus the Buryat language is one of those “language or dialect?” cases) and the largest ethnic minority in Siberia too. Even so, Buryat’s an endangered language. Nayan Navaa is a collection of traditional songs and instruments put into a more energetic, psych-ish setting, a bid to keep Buryat culture alive without closing it off.

Since A Tribe Called Red is already covered, I'll nominate Black Belt Eagle Scout - At the Party With My Brown Friends