Tanya Tagaq, “Qimiruluapik”

Inuit throat singer Tanya Tagaq got her big break when Bjork invited her to sing on “Ancestors” for her vocals-only album, “Medulla,” in 2004, and brought her along on tour. The following year, the Victoria Island artist released her debut, “Sinaa,” which was nominated for five awards at the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards and features the jaw-dropping song, “Qimiruluapik.”

Tagaq in the 1990s developed a style of singing both percussive and melodic Inuit roles, traditionally a two-woman job. I bow before her talent, knowing full well that when confronted with Tagaq’s exorcism-level exhalations, citizens fall into one of four categories: horrified, annoyed, seduced or deaf. For instance, “Illunikavi,” also from “Sinaa,” begins soft and sinewy; then the grunting kicks in, rudely switching the mood from the bedroom to the pig pen — culminating in something akin to an Animal Collective song performed by a choir of imbeciles. She’s assisted by throat singer Filipe Ugarte, but the only version I could find online was this solo performance. If you have Spotify, you can find the version from the album.

There’s a constant something primal, PRIMORDIAL in Tagiq’s singing that allows her work — though bizarre — to stay firmly grounded in reality. Just as the dip of a dancer’s hip means something in a hula plot, Tagaq’s grunts and moans help her tell her native Inuit tales.

But back to “Qimiruluapik” (which is begging for a remix by Kanye West). This is what punk rock would sound like if instruments hadn’t been invented. I haven’t found a translation, but I like to think that Tagiq is recounting the lesson of why it’s best to wait till the colony’s left the hive before going honey-hunting (see also Winnie the Pooh).

NOTE: I’ve shared an annoying Myspace link (the arrow-in-the-circle icon directly below), because it’s the only link I can find, other than Spotify, containing the full song. The Youtube that follows is an abbreviated version of “Qimiruluapik.”

Qimiruluapik

Dead Can Dance, “The Host of Seraphim”

There’s something deeply disturbing about crowds of people sorting through trash at the landfill for goodies — like they’re just milling about at a yard sale — as dump trucks deliver their fly-infested fare almost directly on top of them. It happens every day in India and Nicaragua, where people actually build their homes beside the mountains of garbage, so as to be closer to their “place of employment.” Hell, maybe it’s happening in the good ol’ U.S.A. by now.

When played against Dead Can Dance’s “The Host of Seraphim,” off its 1988 album, “The Serpent’s Egg,” the aforementioned scene takes on a pastoral, nigh-ethereal quality. Which is fitting, because seraphim (a word that can mean either serpent or angel) comes from the Old Testament.

I had already regarded this song by the Australian goth/world music duo (also described as “apocalyptic folk” on Wikipedia) as a masterwork when I experienced it through my eyes in the 1992 cinematic travelogue, “Baraka.” It’s a great example of DCD’s ken for fusing different worlds of expression together — in this case, Bulgarian choral singing is blended with Gregorian opera, and Lisa Gerrard lets it all hang out, climbing within spitting distance of the angels.

Aside from this scene, the “Seraphim” passage counts as the best moment of the film.

Lizzy Mercier Descloux, “Room Mate”

“Mambo Nassau” was recorded at the same studio the Talking Heads two months before had laid down its tracks (in the summer of 1980) for “Remain in Light.” The studio, Compass Point in Nassau, Bahamas, was owned by Island Records founder Chris Blackwell, the man most responsible for bringing reggae to the American mainstream.

It’s fitting, then, that the two albums were among the earliest examples of rock incorporating African polyrhythms (Talking Heads had dabbled in Afrobeat on a couple of songs on 1979’s “Fear of Music”). In the Heads’ case, “Remain in Light” would become one of the band’s most respected album and spawn legions of imitators.

For French musician Lizzy Mercier Descloux, who never quite caught on with the general public, “Mambo” was just one in a series of artistic adventures in a life cut short by cancer in 2003. Descloux went on to record the less accessible “Zulu Rock” in 1984, a blend of African folk and French pop that topped many critics’ lists, followed by an album with Chet Baker a year before he fell out of a hotel window to his death (1986’s “One for the Soul”).

A fixture in France’s burgeoning punk scene by 1975, on visits to New York she palled around with Patti Smith and Richard Hell. It was there she recorded her first solo album, 1979’s “Press Color,” the peppiest slab of no wave to emerge from that short-lived anti-music rebellion.

Here is Descloux at her finest on “Room Mate,” from “Mambo Nassau.”

Angelite/Huun-Huur-Tu, “Lonely Bird”

For some, there is no more orgasmic a combination on Earth than the Bulgarian State Television Female Vocal Choir and Huun-Huur-Tu, a group of throat singers from the Russian republic of Tuva. Not many of these enthusiasts probably live outside of Asia and Asia-centric communities in the West, but I intend to change all that, starting right now.

At the very least, one can’t dispute the singular sound the pairing creates. The ethereal strains from the choir Angelite (a BSTFVC offshoot) mingling with HHT’s more earthly tones is electrifying. Both collectives employ complex harmonies and exhibit incredible control of their breath and breathing.

HHT employs the xoomei style of throat singing, in which each member can sing up to three notes at the same time, giving their voices a reedy timbre. The group has a wealth of experience collaborating and performing with American musicians in its 20-year history, including Frank Zappa, Kronos Quartet, Mickey Hart and Ry Cooder (its music was used in Cooder’s soundtrack for the film, “Geronimo”).

BSTFVC, whose first recording took place in the mid-1950s, is perhaps most noted for its work with Kate Bush (Trio Bulgarka, another BSTFVC offshoot, performed on “The Sensual World” and “The Red Shoes”). An interesting note is that Peter Murphy of Bauhaus played an integral role in BSTFVC’s entry onto the world stage. It was Murphy who lent a 1975 recording (“Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares,” an album that was 15 years in the making) to 4AD founder Ivo Watts-Russell, who reportedly became obsessed with the choir, and rereleased the work in 1986. BSTFVC eventually won a Grammy in 1990. It’s no surprise the Bulgarian choir made it into 4AD’s exclusive catalog, as the haunting, serpentine voices radiated an atmosphere as apprehensive as output by Dead Can Dance and This Mortal Coil, other bands on the label’s roster.

“Lonely Bird,” off 1996’s “Fly, Fly My Sadness,” the first of two collaborations between the collectives, is epic. At 11 minutes, the song shimmers in and out of focus like a mirage. Bjork put out an album in 2004, “Medulla,” that consisted entirely of human vocals (meaning she wasn’t allowed to sing on it). Just kidding.

But it was done on “Sadness” first. The album features no instrumentation, and it doesn’t feel at all gimmicky. It’s essential listening.