Inside ‘Takkuuk’, Bicep’s arresting new project spotlighting indigenous Arctic musicians

Greenland rapper Tarrak, sporting sunglasses and a puffer jacket, sits inside a discarded bus that’s gathering snow in a local scrapyard in Sisimuit. High up in the Arctic, this is the country’s second largest city; with a population of 6,000, you could realistically fit every resident into your nearest mid-sized music venue. Only accessible by air or sea, the place is remote. Come deep winter, the daily temperature averages -14°C. “Imagine being told your culture is bad,” Tarrak says, as he eyeballs the camera in this isolated location. “You start seeing less of yourself.”

This is just one of the arresting and surprising scenes from Takkuuk (pronounced tuck-kook), a new immersive sound/visual installation helmed by Northern Irish electronic super-duo Bicep. The 50-minute feature spotlights the creativity and lives of indigenous artists from across the Arctic regions, including musicians from Canada to Finland, Greenland to Sweden.

In many ways, this scene featuring Tarrak, which is atypical of how you might imagine Greenland and a Greenlandic artist to be, is representative of the wider project. Takkuuk – named after the Inuktitut word meaning “look” – is a dazzling piece of work that invites viewers not just to gaze on Arctic creativity, but to truly look deeper, feel and engage with what’s being made.

On a sticky-warm early July evening, along with around 350 people, Tarrak is witnessing the premiere of Takkuuk at central London venue Outernet. Broadcast in surround across five floor-to-ceiling screens, it is a lot for the senses to take in. The rapper wears an expression of astonishment and delight as he cranes his neck to take in every detail.

Takkuuk might be the brainchild of Belfast producer duo Bicep, but the project is not Boiler Room does National Geographic. It’s not a film nor a documentary. It’s not an album. Instead, it’s a set of compelling human portraits, painted in vision and sound. In it, we briefly enter into the lives of Greenlandic metalcore band Sound of the Damned, Inuit throat singer Silla and many others, while Bicep bind it all together sonically.

The pair collaborated with each of the indigenous artists for a soundtrack that’s raw, abrasive and melancholic. During the premiere, the chopped-up, bass-heavy rumblings of songs like ‘Taarsitillugu’ and ‘Dárbbuo’ rattle the walls of the venue. Floaty Sigur Rós vibes, this ain’t.

Takkuuk is not perhaps the move you may have anticipated from childhood pals Andy Ferguson and Matt McBriar. Over the last 15 years, the pair have ascended from being music bloggers to DJing clubs to headlining the world’s premier electronic festivals. In 2023, their travels took Ferguson to Greenland with EarthSonic, an initiative from environmental charity In Place of War – a trip that first sparked the idea for this new project.

While in the country, he thought he’d see some dramatic scenery. And he did, climbing the towering ice wall of the Russell Glacier – a glacial flow that, at some points, spans a mile wide – recording the loud groans and creaks of the ice sheet rapidly melting. A memory, he says, he’ll never forget.

However, just as life-changing was the experience he had visiting a local music festival – Arctic Sounds, an event showcasing everything from indigenous reggae to hip-hop. It was there that Ferguson witnessed Greenlandic hip hop for the first time, as he watched Tarrak perform to a room of fevered followers. “It was like punk,” he recalls. “I thought there was gonna be a riot.”

The Arctic, its people and cultures, Ferguson says, were “not what I was expecting at all”. He returned home enlightened and determined to collaborate.

“We, as artists, need to look at the problems in the world and see if there’s a way they can interpret our art to raise awareness” – Andy Ferguson

Once back working in their east London studio, the project began gathering momentum – In Place of War introduced Ferguson and McBriar to a string of indigenous artists, each with an equally distinct style. The duo recognised they weren’t the headliners in this project – their collaborators were.

“This experience was so varied and colourful,” remarks McBriar. “It was very much out of our comfort zone, and that was exciting.”

And so they joined forces with Squarepusher collaborator Zak Norman and documentary-maker Charlie Miller, who, over the course of 18 months, would visit the artists in their native Arctic homelands. Through assembling these pieces, a bigger picture of what Takkuuk would stand for emerged. Every artist was distinct, but they often shared similar challenges.

Their indigenous languages, traditions and knowledge are being eroded and under threat from a mixture of big business, national governments and climate change. Or, in Greenland’s case – with President Trump’s appetite to take over the island – all of the above.

Hence why Takkuuk has a powerful duality. It’s a celebration – but it’s also a deafening siren about the cultural richness that could be lost. It’s in the words of the contributors (“There’s a direct link between protecting indigenous rights, and actually protecting the planet,” says contributor Ida Helene Benonisen in the film), but also in the visuals.

What viewers see is, of course, breathtaking – snow-blanketed mountains, frozen forests and the arresting sight of Aurora Borealis – but it’s intentionally presented in an alternative way. Directors Norman and Miller used infrared cameras to film the snow – the vivid scarlet a symbolic nod to the way humans are rapidly heating our planet.

“Whenever I’ve seen documentaries about the Arctic, it’s been sort of David Attenborough style,” notes Norman. “It’s kind of like a film, and the people in them look like characters. There’s this otherness that’s engendered by that – you don’t feel there’s this closeness. For us, we really wanted to make the environment less familiar, and the people a lot more familiar.”

Bicep are humble enough to admit that the whole process of making Takkuuk challenged their own preconceptions. In less self-aware hands, the project could come across as an example of the very type of extractivism it’s trying to highlight.

Sámi artist Nillas contributes a dreamy track called ‘Alit’ to the project, and recalls he was “kind of sceptical” when approached to collaborate. His family history is a story of marginalisation: “The Norwegian government has spent a lot of time and resources the past 100 years trying to eradicate our culture,” they explain.

“Are they [Bicep] just recording our material to put an indigenous theme for their future recordings?” they had questioned. “In some sense, yes, but in a much deeper and gratifying sense than we feared. So it’s been a really good experience. The guys are really open and have a good sense of what this is and who we are. It felt positive.”

Ferguson and McBriar felt that sensitively, too. “For those artists, this is their chance to be presented to different audiences, so it felt like a big responsibility,” says McBriar. “It was daunting for us; we really wanted to do them justice. We didn’t want it to be too much of our thing – we wanted their voices to be heard.”

As if to underline the point, all the soundtrack song titles were chosen by the collaborators and Bicep won’t be taking any royalties. Instead, the money will be split evenly between the indigenous artists they worked with and In Place Of War.

“The rekindling of our culture that’s been taken away from us because of colonisation – you can see it, feel it through the music” – Tarrak

So where can you experience Takkuuk? The soundtrack will be on streaming from July 25. The installation will now tour festivals and venues around the world, starting in mainland Europe. In February 2026, it’ll make its way back to the Arctic – where it will potentially be projected onto a Greenlandic iceberg.

The very fact that it’s a project that goes places – literally and thematically – that other artists are unwilling to go is what makes it so important. “We, as artists, need to look at the problems in the world and see if there’s a way they can interpret our art to kind of raise awareness,” says Ferguson. “It’s easy to turn a blind eye.”

Around the corner from Takkuuk’s London premiere, rapper Tarrak prepares to perform at a packed aftershow. “Us indigenous musicians, we have so many things to say. We also have so many sounds to share, from thousands of generations,” he says, on his way to the stage.

“Also, the rekindling of our culture that’s been taken away from us because of colonisation. You can see it, you can feel it through the music. The spirit of our being – we need a lot of it out here in the world.”

Meet the artists Bicep have collaborated with

Katarina Barruk

Ume Sámi joik pop reclaiming endangered language

Andachan

Greenlandic EDM trailblazer, chopping up electronic moods

Sound Of The Damned

Greenlandic death metal delivered with raw honesty

Tarrak

Greenlandic rapper with politically charged lyrics

Nuija

Indie folk, with a sound as vast as the landscapes

Niilas

Norwegian Sámi electronic producer producing melancholic beats

Silla

Inuit throat singer, blending futuristic dance with ancestral stories

The Takkuuk soundtrack will be released on July 25 via Ninja Tune. Screenings of the audio-visual installation will take place around the world from September – visit here for more info

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