Juno Award
The Juno Awards (stylized as JUNOS), or simply known as the Junos, are awards presented by Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize outstanding achievements in Canada's mu ...
-winning Canadian musical group who combine traditional Inuit throat singing and spoken word storytelling with
blues
Blues is a music genre and musical form that originated among African Americans in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues has incorporated spiritual (music), spirituals, work songs, field hollers, Ring shout, shouts, cha ...
-influenced
folk rock
Folk rock is a fusion genre of rock music with heavy influences from pop, English and American folk music. It arose in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom in the mid-1960s. In the U.S., folk rock emerged from the folk music re ...
Gritt and Ayalik met at the Northern Scene arts festival in
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital city of Canada. It is located in the southern Ontario, southern portion of the province of Ontario, at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the cor ...
,
Ontario
Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...
. Formed in 2014, Quantum Tangle are based in
Yellowknife
Yellowknife is the capital, largest community, and the only city in the Northwest Territories, Canada. It is on the northern shore of Great Slave Lake, about south of the Arctic Circle, on the west side of Yellowknife Bay near the outlet of t ...
,
Northwest Territories
The Northwest Territories is a federal Provinces and territories of Canada, territory of Canada. At a land area of approximately and a 2021 census population of 41,070, it is the second-largest and the most populous of Provinces and territorie ...
. Ayalik, who is
Inuk
Inuit (singular: Inuk) are a group of culturally and historically similar Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Indigenous peoples traditionally inhabiting the Arctic and Subarctic regions of North America and Russia, including Greenland, Labr ...
, is a native of the city, while Gritt, who is
Ojibwe
The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...
-
Métis
The Métis ( , , , ) are a mixed-race Indigenous people whose historical homelands include Canada's three Prairie Provinces extending into parts of Ontario, British Columbia, the Northwest Territories and the northwest United States. They ha ...
, was born in Sudbury, Ontario and raised in the outlying community of Warren. Gritt has lived in Yellowknife since 2009.
As a solo artist prior to the band's formation, Gritt was a regional finalist in
CBC Music
CBC Music (formerly known as CBC FM, CBC Stereo and CBC Radio 2) is a Canadian FM radio network operated by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It used to concentrate on classical and jazz. In 2007 and 2008, the network transitioned towards a ...
's Searchlight competition in 2013 and 2014. For four years, they were a mentee of Yellowknife's
Northern Arts and Cultural Centre
The Northern Arts and Cultural Centre is located in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. It is the only performing arts centre in the NWT.
The 297 seat centre opened May 3, 1984. Created by Yellowknife residents with major support from The ...
. Gritt came out as
transgender
A transgender (often shortened to trans) person has a gender identity different from that typically associated with the sex they were sex assignment, assigned at birth.
The opposite of ''transgender'' is ''cisgender'', which describes perso ...
in 2014, and uses
gender-neutral pronouns
A third-person pronoun is a pronoun that refers to an entity other than the speaker or listener. Some languages, such as Slavic, with gender-specific pronouns have them as part of a grammatical gender system, a system of agreement where most or ...
. Ayalik also performs as a stage actress.
Quantum Tangle released their EP ''Tiny Hands'' in 2017 and their first full-length album, ''Shelter as we go...'', in 2017. Both recordings were released on the Coax label.
Quantum Tangle won the
Juno Award
The Juno Awards (stylized as JUNOS), or simply known as the Junos, are awards presented by Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences to recognize outstanding achievements in Canada's mu ...
Juno Awards of 2017
The Juno Awards of 2017, honouring Canadian music achievements, were presented in Ottawa, Ontario the weekend of 1–2 April 2017. The ceremonies were held at the Canadian Tire Centre in Kanata and televised on CTV with Bryan Adams and Russell ...
Cabin Radio
Cabin Radio is a Canadian independent hyperlocal web media organization based in Yellowknife, Northwest Territories.PIQSIQ. They composed the soundtrack for the 2024 film '' Sunburnt Unicorn''.
Kate Taylor
Kate Taylor (born August 15, 1949) is an American singer-songwriter, originally from Boston, Massachusetts. She is the younger (and only) sister of singer-songwriter James Taylor.
Biography
Taylor was born in Boston and grew up with her four ...
The Globe and Mail
''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...
'', June 6, 2024.
Social justice work
In addition to making music, Quantum Tangle facilitates a series of school workshops and performances on the topic of Indigenous issues in
Northern Canada
Northern Canada (), colloquially the North or the Territories, is the vast northernmost region of Canada, variously defined by geography and politics. Politically, the term refers to the three Provinces_and_territories_of_Canada#Territories, terr ...