PhilPaine.com

Kwak­waka’wakw [Kwak­i­utl] music in British Colum­bia comes as a sur­prise to any­one who is more famil­iar with the pow-wow music of the rest of Cana­da. It’s meant to accom­pa­ny indoor cer­e­monies and the pecu­liar dance dra­mas with elab­o­rate cos­tumes that pre­vailed on the Pacif­ic coast. Orches­tras of log, box, and hide drums are accom­pa­nied by a vari­ety of rat­tles and whis­tles play with uni­son chants in Kwak’wala, sup­ple­ment­ed by solo “hollers”. It’s the rat­tles that car­ry the aura of sacred­ness. The rhythms are noth­ing at all like what you would hear on the plains. Some are rem­i­nis­cent of Japan­ese forms, like gagaku. I don’t know how this par­tic­u­lar album, by the Gwa’wina Singers of Alert Bay, com­pares to oth­er stuff from the Coast. This whole area of music is unfa­mil­iar ter­ri­to­ry for me.