PIQSIQ’s Tiffany Ayalik and Inuksuk Mackay have released their version of Jingle Bells for the holidays with a unique Arctic spin.
The Inuit throat-singing sister duo described their rendition of the normally joyful, upbeat song as “soaring, haunting and ethereal.”
“That was a really fun experiment in just reimagining something in a totally different key,” Ayalik said.
While today Jingle Bells is known as a cheery, popular Christmas carol, the song has a dark history.
It was written in the mid-19th century by James Lord Pierpont, an American composer with a checkered backstory. There is debate over whether he originally wrote the song in Medford, Massachusetts or Savannah, Georgia.
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Research published in 2017 found that the first performance of the song was part of an 1857 Boston minstrel show, a form of theatre based on stereotypes of Black Americans that featured white actors performing in blackface.
“I think we gave it the sort of mournful, haunting spin on it that it deserved,” Mackay said of PIQSIQ’s version of Jingle Bells.
People can listen to and purchase the holiday single on PIQSIQ’s bandcamp page and streaming services.
PIQSIQ released their first Christmas album – Quiviasugvik: In Search of Harmony, featuring a collection of carols with throat singing – in 2019.
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It has since become a holiday tradition for Mackay and Ayalik to release singles of Christmas songs re-imagined through an Inuit and decolonial lens. In previous years, they have released renditions of Ave Maria, Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy and Coventry Carol.
“One of the messages we continue to reiterate with our Christmas releases is sort-of pushback against that holiday propaganda that we see, that really insists that you be happy for all of December,” Mackay said, adding that’s not realistic.
“There’s a lot of grief that happens around the holidays, especially for Indigenous folks, and I think it’s our invitation to just be honest and feel how you feel, regardless of the pressures that are being put on you.”
Some of PIQSIQ’s carols are featured in a Christmas qulliq video, which they described as “the Arctic version of the holiday log.”
For their album Legends, PIQSIQ are nominated for Indigenous songwriters of the year and vocal group of the year at the 2026 Canadian Folk Music Awards.
They are working on a music video for Tutaliit: Mermaids, one of the songs on that album.
