Local world music outfit...
heads north to connect with Inuit culture
Mike Warkentin

Stratford, Toronto, North Bay, Montreal, Gatineau and Iqaluit.

Iqaluit? What sort of band makes the capital of Nunavut part of a tour?

The answer is: The sort of band that is fascinated by traditional music and cultures.

Paris to Kyiv is just such a group, and it has been bringing culture, specifically Ukrainian culture, back to life since 1994, when it released its self-titled first album.

The group is a loose conglomerate of musicians — including percussionist Christian Dugas, Rodrigo Muñoz of Papa Mambo, bassist Paul Yee and singer Alan Schroeder — who join core members Alexis Kochan (vocals), Julian Kytasty (bandura, a multi-stringed relative of the guitar) and Richard Moody (violin) in giving new voice to ancient melodies or lyrics that Kochan discovers in her travels to Eastern Europe.

Iqaluit isn’t Kyiv, but Kochan feels there is a link between the two places as they relate to her rediscovering old rhythms, melodies and phrases.

“I guess I’m interested in communities in Canada that aren’t visited a lot by artists and are isolated,” Kochan says over the phone from Montreal. “So I was hoping to get up there (Iqaluit) for a while.

“One of the things I’m always interested in is getting a better understanding of other traditional cultures, and in Canada I would say there is a wealth up there. It’s looks like I’m going to have a chance to play with some elders, so those kinds of things really excite me given what I do — which is I spend time around tables with old babas with a bottle of vodka singing songs, so I’m hoping we can do something similar.”

Kochan wants to sit down with some Inuit elders and get more in touch with a culture that reaches back hundreds of years. Inuit music is characterized by dancing and throat singing — a technique that is used to create incredibly textured notes or multiple tones at once — and the singer sees a link between Inuit culture and that of Europe and Asia.

“Interestingly enough, we used throat singing on the Fragmenti recording, just in a couple of spots, to add a certain kind of texture and colour to create a particular kind of vibe for that piece,” she says of the traditional technique often used by tribes in Central Asia.

Kochan thinks of herself as a sort of musical archeologist, and the Winnipeg resident specializes in giving new life to songs long forgotten. She’s been doing so since 1982, when she released Czarivna, a collection of seasonal songs from Ukraine. Paris to Kyiv has released three previous discs, and 2005 finds the collective promoting Fragmenti, a haunting collection of tracks that seems to find the hidden door between the Canadian Prairies and the steppes of Ukraine.

Fragmenti was released in early September, but Paris to Kyiv hasn’t played locally since, so the Nov. 4 show at the West End Cultural Centre marks the Winnipeg coming-out party for the album.

Furthermore, CBC Radio Two is recording the concert for the Friday evening show The World in Performance, hosted by Matt Galloway. The concert will be broadcast in 2006, ensuring the sounds of Paris to Kyiv will captivate a wider audience.

“I’ve had people crying because they really love the music, and it is that kind of music, especially if it connects to your roots,” Kochan says.