Yellowknife’s Digawolf returns with a cinematic fourth album, Ini (Spirit), the first entirely Tłı̨chǫ language album in over a decade. In writing and recording Ini over the past two years, Diga aimed to bring the language to a new level through sound. Diga built instrumentals up around the stories he was telling — partly sung and partly spoken in his distinctive gravelly voice — of celebration, beauty, gratitude, and prayer; Diga reflects on both the struggle and the rich history in the North.  

Diga grew up in the remote community of Behchoko, the capital of the Tłı̨chǫ Nation, located in Canada’s Northwest Territories an hour outside of Yellowknife. His first and only language until the age of nine was Tłı̨chǫ, and his songs are often inspired by his father’s stories of life on the land, as well as his own experience of navigating two worlds.  

Thanks to older brothers and their passion for music, the sounds of iconic artists like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were the soundtrack of Diga’s childhood. Yet, Diga’s first artistic passions fell firmly in visual arts and cartooning. It wasn’t until Diga found a discarded copy of Tom Waits’s Rain Dogs that he developed fascination with music, which led him down the journey he has been on since. 

A multi-instrumentalist, Diga finds musical inspiration from an eclectic range of artists, including Kashtin, Tłı̨chǫ Drummers, Enigma, Caribou, Bob Moses, and Indigenous Siberian folk-pop band Otyken. Diga studied audio recording at TARA in Ottawa partly in response to the expense of traveling south to record, and now produces and writes out of his basement home studio, bringing in long-time friend and drummer, David Dowe and other collaborators to create highly textured yet sonically spacious songs. “The North is a very small town,” he says, “you have to wear a lot of hats.” And so he is a producer, engineer, songwriter, musician, and film composer. An idea for a rolling bass part for “Dechita Segoiti” (“Bush is Good”) woke him up in the night and so he went down to the studio to record it, days before the album went for mastering. 

The songs on Ini take the listener on a journey through the North: songs about muskrat hunting by canoe “Eneetii” (“Stagg River”), drinking tea “Lidi,” family and spirit “Ini.” Some songs speak to the realities of life in the city: “Sombe K’e” (“Yellowknife”) and “Segia Dahte” (“My friend how are you?”), a moving song about an old friend fallen on hard times. Others are gentle love songs (“Neghoniehto”). Diga weaves in found sounds and field recordings, including a wolf’s howl, a thunderstorm, and a drum dance that bleeds into the final song, “Ehtsee” (“Grandfather”) and helps to invoke the feeling of a rich ancestry that defines who he is and where he comes from. English translations do not do Tłı̨chǫ lyrics justice as Tłı̨chǫ uses shared history, metaphor, and imagination to add nuance to every word; a brief Tłı̨chǫ phrase can evoke an entire story to those who speak the language. Such a truth resonates with importance on why continuing to use Indigenous languages speaks to more than just a use of words; it is the preservation of a rich oral history held within a community.  

As on other Digawolf albums, Diga includes instrumental tracks on Ini: the fast-paced opening song “Digats’e” (“She Wolf”) and “Idi Whaa” (“Ancient Times”), which imagines how his ancestors lived before first contact. Considering his roots in visual arts, these instrumental tracks bring Digawolf’s music full circle: “I’m trying to paint with audio,” he says. “I want to explore sounds and ideas and take people on a journey through time and space.”

Awards:

Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, Best Male Artist of the Year, The Earth is Crying, Diga - 2005

Nominations: 

Junos, Indigenous Band of the Year, Yellowstone - 2020

Western Canadian Music Awards, Rock Album of the Year and Indigenous Artist of the Year, Yellowstone - 2019

Indigenous Music Award, Rock Album of the Year, Great Northern Man - 2017

Canadian Folk Music Awards, Aboriginal Songwriter of the Year, Great Northern Man - 2016

Western Canadian Music Awards, Aboriginal Artist of the Year, Great Northern Man - 2016

Junos, Aboriginal Album of the Year, Distant Morning Star - 2010

Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, Best Folk Album, The Earth is Crying, Diga - 2005

Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards, Best Instrumental Album, Father, Jesse James Gon - 2003

Opened for:
Sam Roberts, the White Stripes, Florent Vollant (Kashtin)

Influence:
Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, Kashtin, Sacred Spirit, Robbie Robertson, Roy Buchanan, Neil Young and The Tlicho Drummers