Tsimka & Michael Red
Tsimka & Michael Red is a collaboration of music from the land and from the heart (and knowing and listening).
Tsimka sings and speaks and sometimes plays a drum. Most lyrics are in Tsimka's heritage language Tia-o-qui-aht ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ. Her themes deal with love, cleansing, healing, liberation through imagining and more.
Michael creates and reveals music and atmospheres with the natural sounds recorded by Tsimka from her ƛaʔuukʷiʔatḥ home territory, and Sḵwx̱wú7mesh territory (where she lived recently for 2 years). Breaking ice as light percussive rhythm, bull kelp head explosions becoming kick drum patterns, a Squamish valley wolf, a large cat in the dark.. Cixwatsac (Frank Island frogs), Swainson's Thrush, other birds, a little creek at Hiłwinʔis, ocean, rain, and mist
Tsimka's voice is also used as an instrument through live fx and is embedded in Michael's pre-made production (which is dubbed out and layered and effected live). Words, tones, and expressions are shaped and woven into all layers of the sonic fabric, from deeply embedded to very visible.