Making and choosing the music for hit TV series North Of North

The hit APTN, Netflix, and CBC comedy series North Of North features a rare and inspiring look at a modern Inuk mother of one, bent on reclaiming a small (if fictional) Nunavut village, but the show’s accompanying score and soundtrack is just as empowering.

North Of North showcases the scoring prowess of the Vancouver-based Chan brothers – Caleb and Brian – and song placements of more than 15 Canadian Indigenous artists, licensed by veteran music supervisor Michael Perlmutter. They range from songs by Elisapie, Tanya Tagaq, and Riit to those by Snotty Nose Rez Kids, Joshua Haulli, and PIQSIQ, as North Of North opens a window to a way of life that’s as stimulating sonically as it is visually.

There was only one caveat in tackling the first season of the eight-episode series, that follows the adventures of the lead character Siaja (pronounced Si-ya) as she rebuilds her independence: stay true to the culture.

For screen composer Caleb Chan, who produced  the program’s music cues with his colleague and brother Brian, it was a huge concern. He credits Perlmutter, and Red Marrow Media creators and showrunners – Stacey Aglok MacDonald, Alethea Arnaquq-Baril, and Northwood Entertainment executive producer Miranda de Pencier – with establishing the groundwork prior to their arrival on the project.

“They had all the songs set, so it was like we were walking into a world where all these things were set up for us, and it was easier for us to  slot our music between all these great moments that the songs were already hallmarking,” says Caleb. “The show is so much ingrained in that culture that it needs to feel authentic, and the songs are the part that made it come alive in a way that we couldn’t as non-Inuit composers. That kind of gives the sonic identity to the show as well. We have to thank the creators, the showrunners, and the songs for paving the way, so that we could understand what an Inuk broad-based comedy is, and what that should sound like.”

For his part, Michael Perlmutter wanted to instill a sense of reality with the 60-odd songs that soundtracked the series. “We wanted to reflect that the Inuk culture and the communities that are in the North are also connected to the rest of the world,” says Perlmutter, founder of Toronto-based Instinct Entertainment. “Just because they’re up North, doesn’t mean they don’t listen to Alanis Morissette, or Britney Spears, or Dua Lipa’s ‘Levitating.’”

Perhaps inspired by Elisapie’s landmark 2003 album Inuktitut, several Indigenous artists were commissioned to record English-language pop songs in their native tongues. “We had the singer Riit, for example, record ‘Levitating’ in the Inuk language and it’s just amazing, a beautiful cultural mix,” says  Perlmutter, who needle-dropped five or six songs for each 22-minute episode.

“We also did a cover of ‘Milkshake,’ by Kelis, with Angela Amarualik, but in the Josie and The Pussycats style, for a specific scene which was part of the ‘Walrus Dick Baseball’ episode,” says Perlmutter. “And of course, we used a couple of Elisapie tracks:  one was [Fleetwood Mac’s] ‘Dreams’ and the other was [Cyndi Lauper’s] ‘Time After Time.’

“They’re all beautiful,” he continues, “and they fit seamlessly throughout the different scenes, the different environments, and powerfully support the storylines – which is really what the music is supposed to do: give support, and never really overshadow what’s happening in the story.”

Another authentic soundtrack addition was music from Tanya Tagaq,  who plays the role of the underwater sea goddess Nuliajuk; one who appears to actor Anna Lambe’s Siaja during a turning point in her life. Tagaq’s inimitable singing appears on three separate Chan music score cues, as well as in the song “Uja”; the Joe Tarman remix of “Colonizer,” that also features the Kronos Quartet; and as a feature on The Halluci Nation’s “Sila.”

“She did such a great job of playing the goddess, to the point where every time she appeared, we could use her sound – whenever she appears underwater, and when she’s inside Siaja’s head,” says Brian Chan. Adds Caleb, “Tanya brought so much of the throat-singing tradition into the score that way. And it’s not just in the score, but she’s also in the songs as well.”

For the Chans – whose scoring credits include The Fairly Oddparents: A New Wish, Lego Dreams, Allegiance, and The Thundermans Return – the biggest challenge of scoring North Of North was using restraint. “We didn’t want to over-score it,” says Brian, a former CBC recording engineer. “I find comedy so tricky, because you can get to the melodrama fairly easily. The show isn’t cheesy, so how do we keep it from being cheesy? By not adding too much music.”

Caleb, who, like Brian, works in his own home studio, said that the show’s creators and runners eased a lot of stress. “The world opened up, because it just became playful and creative, in the way that they wanted their show to feel,” he says. “We just took their cue, and experimented in different styles, and pushed it into different directions. We had the freedom that when we go too far, they’ll rein us in… We’re working with them all the time, and asking, ‘Is this landing? Is this [the right] tone?’ Are we just a stage shy of where we need to be? Do we need to re-write the whole thing?’ And of course, Michael Perlmutter is onside… giving us tremendous input.”

Perlmutter says that early song placement and later scoring has worked well. “The cut comes out, and what I and the editors do is play with songs, put them in the scenes, and then fill the rest with score: where it can be emotional, dramatic, whatever,” he says. “Once we have a semblance of what it might sound like, we do a spotting session. In that spotting session, the producers, the editor, myself, the Chan Brothers, go through everything. ‘Do we need the score to go here? How long should the score go? What should the score sound like? Do we like this song in this place? Should we replace the score? If we have score here, do we want to replace the song?’

“What will determine a song’s  placement will be emotion, tempo, a feeling, a lyric, how it fits with the theme, and even how it can be edited,” says Perlmutter. “Those are really, really important. We don’t want it to take over the scene. But the final decision ultimately comes down to the showrunners.”