“If you’re trying to connect with the world, you have to go with the lowest common denominator. What do we all do? We breathe.”

Tanya Tagaq Gillis is trying to explain the appeal of her reinvention of traditional Inuk throat singing. On the phone from her home in Yellowknife, Tagaq is charming, disarming and utterly unpretentious. Even with her theories, she’s clearly a little confused by her success. “I’m always really surprised when people like it — and really happy. I’m not stupid enough to think that it would be mainstream,” she says.

Still, the power and impact of her recordings and performances are undeniable. “I can be exactly who I am without feeling insecure or being laughed at or anything,” she explains. “I’m putting myself out there and everyone else is more comfortable…. It’s like being in a really stuffy room where no one knows each other, and then all of a sudden something happens that makes everybody laugh, and the ice is broken. It’s kind of along those lines. Because I’ve opened myself up so much, people don’t have to feel so closed.”

There’s an undeniable fairy tale element to Tagaq’s story. As is usually the case, the reality is much more shaded and nuanced. The daughter of a teacher and an air traffic controller, she grew up in “the booming metropolis of Cambridge Bay, Nunavut,” though she travelled a fair bit as a child. While studying painting at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design in Halifax, she started singing along with tapes of traditional throat-singing tapes from her mother’s care packages. She practised in the shower and found it came fairly naturally to her. What was most surprising was how powerfully and primally her performances resonated with her steadily growing audience. From these traditional throat-singing roots, Tagaq moved to more expansive, experimental territory.

Her first disc, Sinaa, was recorded in Spain by Juan Hernandez and attracted a great deal of high-profile attention, leading to collaborations with Bjork and the Kronos Quartet and a spot on the soundtrack for acclaimed director Mathew Barney’s Drawing Restraint 9. Recording her second album, Auk/Blood (pronounced “ouch” with a K), in Calgary was a positive change from her Sinaa experience.

“I moved [to Spain] and I couldn’t speak Spanish, my boyfriend couldn’t speak English and I had a small baby, and I felt really isolated and alone,” she recalls. “It was a totally different feeling for this one. I had all my beautiful friends, I was living in Calgary and everyone I recorded with were people I loved. Every single person on that album contributed their heart and soul, and I think that’s why I’m so happy with it.” Mostly recorded at Sundae Sound by local über-producer Dave Alcock, the album features vocal contributions from Mike Patton (Faith No More, Mr. Bungle, Peeping Tom) and Buck 65, along with emphatic violin by Jesse Zubot of Zubot and Dawson. Even with her high-profile collaborations and increasing international renown, though, Tagaq has remained a grounded, centred small-town girl.

“I would never consider myself a celebrity in any sense, ever,” she says bluntly. “I’ve seen the negative side of that, too, and it’s something you choose to pursue and that you are.” Hanging out with Bjork has thrown that negative side of celebrity into sharp relief. “She’s had some really bad stuff happen to her, like people sending her bombs. She’s had some really horrific stuff go down. When we go out, she can’t even go into a restaurant without someone coming and talking to her. It’s such a complete lack of privacy. It means you have to put up such a huge wall because there’s actually danger.”

These brushes with fame have renewed Tagaq’s appreciation for her simple Arctic origins. You can hear the joy in her voice as she talks about it. “I loved everything about growing up there,” she says. “[At the time] we thought it was boring, but now that I’ve been travelling around the world, I would say that it’s one of the most incredible places on the planet, but nobody growing up there realizes how amazing it is.”