A gorgeous cover in Inuktitut by Elisapie von The Unforgiven, a Metallica classic, caught the magazine’s attention Rolling Stone, who agreed to debut the song and its music video on their website on Tuesday morning.
Officially released on Wednesday to mark National Day of Indigenous Peoples, Isumagijunnaitaungitq (The Unforgiven) is the third single from an album of covers of big pop and rock hits, all in the Salluit artist’s native language. The album “Inuktitut” will be released on September 15th.
Elisapie’s Quebec record label Bonsound says it was her American press team who spotted “the great opportunity” to offer the song exclusively to Rolling Stone.
The United States, we are told, is not new territory for Elisapie, having performed there particularly around the time of her album The Ballad of the Runaway Girl.
Metallica fan
It’s also no surprise that Elisapie is covering a Metallica title. In a Bonsound press release, we learn that as a teenager in her Nunavik village, she was a big fan of the heavy metal band.
“When we were teenagers, we used to go to my big cousin’s house to smoke weed and listen to Metallica. Their music made us dive into the darkness of our broken souls and feel comfortable there. The role of people in our area was changed by colonization and became so confused that no one knew what daily life should be like. My buddies were looking for new roles and subconsciously I let them become my bodyguards. Looking back, I tried to give them the courage to find their place,” says the singer.
In 1990, when she was working for the Inuit radio and television station TNI, she even managed to get an interview with Kirk Hammett. “In the eyes of my friends, I was the coolest,” she says.
throat songs
For this moving reinterpretation of The Unforgiven, Elisapie was able to count on a team of stars made up of musicians Joe Grass, Robbie Kuster, François Lafontaine and Jason Sharp, singer Erika Angell and Sylvia Cloutier, specialist in throat singing or katajjaq.
“The use of the katajjaq, according to Elisapie, was perfectly appropriate. It’s the Inuit women who sing with their throats. It is also women, mothers and grandmothers who care for others in difficult times. With this song, I wanted the female power to be a counterbalance to the challenges that men face.
Elisapie will embark on a major tour of Quebec and France in the fall. In particular, we will see them at Usine C in Montreal from December 7th to 9th and at the Grand Théâtre de Québec on December 20th and 21st.