When Pamyua's Phillip Blanchett talks about music, he closes his eyes and bobs his head. When he talks about rhythm -- about what he calls the "pulse" of a song -- he slows down his speech to match the time of the beat he has in mind. When asked if the band ever feels the pressure of interpreting traditional Inuit and Yupik music, of satisfying the traditionalists while appealing to a broader audience, he's confident.
"We don't think about how it's going to be negatively looked on by people back home," Blanchett said about the family and friends he still has in Bethel, his hometown. "If it feels good, it's going to bring a smile to your face. We have faith that people back home are supportive. And they have been, completely."
Phillip and his brother Stephen Blanchett and their cousin Ossie Kairiuak founded Pamyua (pronounced bum-yo-ah, after the Yupik word for "tail," used as a call for an encore after a performance) more than 15 years ago, and began by performing at Anchorage-area high schools.
"When I first started dancing here in (Anchorage)," Phillip said, "I couldn't have named another peer my age who was doing Yupik dancing. It was nonexistent."
Soon Kairiuak and the Blanchetts were joined by Karina Moeller, a Greenlandic Inuit singer who moved to Alaska to work full-time with the band after a chance performance together at an Alaska festival. After Moeller arrived on the scene, Pamyua was officially born. They released their first album, "Mengluni" or "The Beginning" in 1998, followed by "Verses" in 2001.
In 2003, they released "Caught in the Act," featuring their most contemporary music to date, blending traditional Inuit music with jazz, funk, soul, and reggae influences. That album won them the Record of the Year award at the Native American Music Awards, popularly known as the "Nammys." In 2005, they returned to their more traditional roots, with a collection of rhythm heavy songs on "Drums of the North."
Lately, Pamyua has been mostly quiet around Anchorage, despite the fact that all the members live in the city, and their one-room studio -- packed with recording equipment, a variety of drums, stacks of CDs, and electrical cords strewn across the floor -- is in midtown. They did play one recent show -- their first of 2011 -- last weekend to a sold-out crowd at Tap Root on Spenard.
Kairiuak recently led a team of Yupik dancers in Alaska Dance Theatre's production of "Qug'yuq," a retelling of the classic "Swan Lake" ballet mixed with Yupik storytelling elements. Stephen Blanchett is spending his winter with other Native American performers for Education through Cultural and Historical Organizations, a program that blends a variety of cultures across the U.S. through performance, and in which he has been active for several years. Pamyua has continued to play shows at a variety of locations across the state, the U.S., and the world.
Despite their relatively low-key schedule, the band has been quietly constructing a new album, which Phillip Blanchett describes as "traditional Inuit drum songs." They've recorded a number of tracks across a multitude of locations around the world, and he says it's brought a variety of emotions and experiences to the songs.
"To map the tracks out and look back at what we recorded and where we recorded it, it's amazing," said Phillip, who finished mixing about half of the album with longtime Pamyua collaborator and Danish musician Kristoffer Jul in Denmark in November. The band also rented a cabin on Kenai Lake to finalize some of the vocal tracks for the new album.
Phillip says the pressure of releasing a new album, especially as the years have gone on, is something the band has been aware of. "This next album, no matter when we released it," Phillip said, "people's expectations of what this album is gonna be ... are pretty high. Pamyua has always progressed."
But despite the expectations, Phillip says as long as they stick to their roots, and as long as they feel their writing honors the musical and cultural traditions of their source material, others will enjoy it. He says the band is aware of the emotion that can go along with listening to one of their songs, because they feel it in the same way as their audience.
"It's all about relationships," Phillip said about how the band chooses songs to perform. "It's how do we know that song, how are we related to it. The majority of our songs on the next album, Ossie wrote. And Ossie's in the group, so we are related to that song."
It's that relationship that allows not only the band to connect to the music, but the knowledge that that relationship will extend to their audience as well, and that the band and the audience will then share a new relationship.
With any kind of performing, Phillip says, it's important to draw the audience in and sweep them up in the moment so they feel a connection to the music or dance. Phillip smiles broadly when he thinks of "kids in the villages" listening to their music, or youth in the cities driving around playing Pamyua in their cars and sharing in that cultural and musical relationship.
The new album, Phillip says, will be similar to their first album. "The difference between this album and our first," he said, "is that we're going to be using a Yupik drum, so there's going to be a very strong emphasis on that pulse and heartbeat of the drum."
There's no definitive date for the new album's release, although Phillip says it will be October of this year.
In the meantime, Pamyua is keeping busy, tweaking their studio arrangements, and with a remaster and re-release of their debut album, "Mengluni," with a new bonus track added. They've also been getting national exposure by having their music featured on the Discovery Channel's series about Alaska bush pilots, "Flying Wild Alaska." Phillip says he's heard a lot of positive feedback about the program from those living in some of the communities featured on the show.
"There was a lot of skepticism for locals over whether the show will really represent Alaska," he said. He adds that it's just one more way for Pamyua to foster a relationship with an audience in a new city or state. "We can go, hey, our music's in ('Flying Wild Alaska') ... It's a really amazing way to cross-reference and be relevant in a different way." He says the band's music will be featured throughout the show's run.
The band has also made a music video -- their first -- for "Unugaanga," one of the songs off of that first album. They will premiere the video, directed by Phillip, at the Alaska Native Heritage Center during the Indigenous World Film Festival on Feb. 18 and 19.
Contact Ben Anderson at ben(at)alaskadispatch.com.