Throat singing duo Silla discuss what's up next in their careers

It's considered the world's foremost indigenous music gathering. The International Indigenous Music Summit kicks off this week at TD Center at Massey Hall, and joining us to talk more about the event are Charlotte Hominick and Cynthia Pizziak of the throat singing duo Sila. Thank you so much for joining today. Thank you for having us. We're happy to be here. We are happy to have you in studio. Let's talk a little bit about the art form of throat song. If if people have never heard of it, what are its origins? Well, there are different cultures around the world that practice throat singing. So what Cynthia and I do is unique to Inuit in Canada. So we are a duo where we sing with our throats, our voices and our breaths. So we're creating sounds and we're doing a call in response and the songs interpret sounds of nature, sounds of the environment. There's lullaby songs, competition songs. So it's just a great form of entertainment and competition. Are there typically any lyrics at all involved? There's not a lot of lyrics. There is one song that does have lyrics. It's one of the older throat songs. But typically the throat songs are just using our voices and our breaths. If you haven't heard it before. And we will hear a performance at the end of this interview. It is sort of been reinvented, reimagined, and we're hearing more. What does it mean to see it come into 2024? And then you you can hear it and you can collaborate more with different artists. What does that mean for you both? Yeah, that's a great question. Because when we first started throat singing together 20 years ago, we were very, hold on a second. We were very cautious about making sure we're preserving the traditional way of singing because as many people know, during the colonization period and residential school, our throat singing practices and other practices were endangered. And so it was very important for us to 1st learn the traditional way of singing, the traditional songs and keep those intact before exploring other ways of singing and collaborating with others. So I think we kind of did our due diligence with making sure that we're preserving that, you know, traditional way and then moving it forward to today where we can comfortably collaborate with other musicians and add it to electronic music or other types of music. Yeah. And explore like, you know, creativity and, you know, just having fun collaborating with other artists and trying different sounds. Yes. 20 years together. That is incredible. Into your fourth album. I should note for our viewers, you have something special coming out soon. Yeah, we're working on a double album actually, so it's been in the works for the last year or so, and we're hoping to release it in the fall. Let's talk about the summit. You're in town. You've got sound check coming up a little bit later. You will be taking to the stage this evening at Massey Hall. What is it like and what's it going to be like to be part of that incredible group performing tonight? I think it's going to be really exciting because there's going to be Indigenous artists from all over the world. So it's really exciting for us to be a part of it, get to see other, you know, other indigenous artists from everywhere and, you know, also get to share our, you know, our music as well. You're beautiful talent. I'm going to do a shout out for both of your websites. If people want to learn more about your new double album that's going to be coming out, where do they go? So you can check out coming up records.com. So Q AM ANIQ records.com. And then our our socials is Zila throat singers beautiful. And also if you want to learn more about the Indigenous Music Summit, it is taking place all the way until June 14th at Massey Hall, Indigenous Music summit.com. And as promised, Selah will be performing for us. So I'll let you take this stage. Thank you. Thank you so much to you both. Thank you.