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“I’m so happy because there’s snow!� the throat-singing composer, author, activist and member of the Order of Canada beamed over Zoom. “We went out on that day it was supposed to be cold and I couldn’t keep my kid’s jacket on — she was overheating. The summer times are sometimes difficult for me. I often feel it’s too hot and I’m uncomfortable. Everybody’s wired differently, I guess.�

Many may not be wired as intensely as Tagaq, who released her fifth album, “Tongues,� on Jan. 21 and plays Massey Hall on March 30. It’s her first studio album project since 2016’s “Retribution� — an album whose topics exposed Canada’s ugly underbelly of Indigenous and sexual and environmental abuses, as well as reconciliation.

“Tongues� — produced and co-written by New York slam poet, actor, author and rapper Saul Williams with a heavy assist from San Diego producer and mixer Gonjasufi, a.k.a. Sumach Valentine — is also Tagaq’s first album since an estimated 200 unmarked burials were confirmed near the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School last May. As numerous residential school sites across Canada continue to be examined — 130 were in operation between 1831 and 1996, says the Canadian Encyclopedia — that number is rising daily, the majority of victims believed to be Indigenous children plucked from their homes and placed in government-sponsored schools designed to assimilate them into Christian culture.

“It’s over 7,000 now and there’s more to be found,â€� said Tagaq. “I just can’t believe that people can even have anything to say about that other than, ‘Wow, that’s horrific. I can’t believe we did that. I can’t believe that happened.’ Anybody who said anything other than that is f—-ng garbage!â€�

To say that the electronic-driven “Tongues� is seething with anger is an understatement: the opening lines of “In Me,� say “Eat your morals,� partially rendered by the singer in that otherworldly throat-singing timbre.

The title track, “Tongues,� is a defiant rejection of assimilation and imposed silence, while the lyrics to the four-minute-and-24-second “Colonizer� consist simply of this, repeated over and over again: “Colonizer! Oh, you’re guilty!�

“Teeth Agape,� fleshed against a sporadic ostinato of synthesizer and a heavy beat, has Tagaq passionately declaring, “Touch my children and my teeth will welcome your windpipe!�

Obviously, Tagaq, as her fans are accustomed, is pulling no punches on “Tongues.�

“Am I angry?� she responded to an interviewer’s question. “Yes. I am. And the anger runs deep and it’s not just words. I’m absolutely heartbroken. Livid. Devastated. Thinking about — especially about children. It was just at that point where we’ve always known how many kids never came back from residential schools. We’ve seen the progression of all of this.

“I’ve been very aware of what was happening for so long and I’m just tired, and I’m done with the narrative that ‘everyday Canadians’ can just walk around pretending that this is a benevolent place. There are many, many beautiful things about this country and the people in it, but you no longer can deny genocide and you can no longer deny it’s in the past. We’re living it today. And every single person that benefits from land theft; every single person that benefits from land development — which is all of us — we are all taking part in this structure every day.

“You can’t wear blinders anymore. I’m just going to rip those off for you because it’s better to see than to have blinders on. So that’s why ‘Colonizer’ came out the way it did. Everyone is guilty and everybody has to take responsibility to repair the damages so that we can live.�

One doesn’t necessarily think of restraint when listening to a Tagaq record, but the artist, who won the Polaris Music Prize and a Juno Award for 2014’s “Animism,� said this is the first project of a trilogy in which she’s been able to express herself without inhibition.

“I have felt (inhibited) in the past,� she said. “But that’s because, as with any artist, we’re whole people. We’re not just what the public sees. So I have sides of myself that are very, very gentle; they’re very quiet, very shy.

“Because, when you’re a caring person you care for everybody, so you don’t want to step on people’s toes. Sometimes I grapple with that, how to highlight what I think without insulting other people or putting them in an awkward position. But it’s changed so much. A lot of society has woken up to these ideas that I’ve been talking about since university. So I think it’s been a two-pronged kind of thing that happened where I’m stepping up and putting my boots on, but also everyone else is putting sunglasses on,� she added with a laugh.

Tagaq credits Saul Williams for some of the breakthrough.

“I think Saul’s vision was to really isolate me and my ideas,� she explained. “He wanted me to say what I liked or what I didn’t like or what the feel was going to be. So that was his vision and it was strange for me, at first, but it was very, very good in order to eventually be able to come to this place where I was alone in the studio, in the dark and the lights low, and looking at these words that I had written and thinking about what they encapsulated … I didn’t know that I would be able to harness words the way music comes to me, but it happened and I’m very happy with it.�

Tagaq said this project, which also takes some of its inspiration from her 2018 Giller Prize longlisted novel “Split Tooth,� presents her at her most vulnerable.

“Many times when I’m releasing work, it will apply on different levels: on a universal level, on an immediate society level and then on a personal level,� she said. “And it is scary for me to release this album and that song in particular because, on a personal level, I suffered sexual abuse as a child. On a bigger level, the effects of the residential school system have allowed and propagated a lot of sexual abuse within our communities. And sexual abuse also lives in silence amongst your culture as well.

“The more people I talk to, the more I know how many people are hiding in shame the symptoms of what happened to them as children, so I’m trying to shine a light on the level of abuse, the horrific, disgusting and revolting abuse that those children suffered in residential schools. And then, after that, on a more global level, it’s how we’re treating the planet. So it can be applied in multiple ways and I think that I’m hoping to heal inside — me — and I’m hoping to help others connect with themselves and lost innocence; how we can regain our power through forgiving ourselves.

“Other people can’t do that for us, we have to learn to love ourselves and forgive ourselves.�

She’s also been burned for her views and has even received threats as a supporter of traditional Inuit sealing, which came to a head when she decried People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) in her 2014 Polaris Music Prize acceptance speech.

“Often what happens to me in interviews is I speak gently, but my words come across very harsh,� said Tagaq.

“I’m a gentle person in my home. My home is gentle. I have a nice life. But somehow, in these interviews … when I said, ‘F—- PETA,’ I wasn’t screaming.

“This is part of the reason I’ve never unleashed my fury before, because of the fear of the repercussions. Over the years, so many wonderful people have opened their minds and their hearts to the truth, that I now have more room to express myself in that non-dangerous way, so me and my family can feel safe … (‘Tongues’) is an angry album, but it takes courage to release it.�

But there are hopeful messages in “Tongues� as well, especially evident in the song “Do Not Fear Love.�

“It was basically me asking myself and anyone in my position to not harden and deny yourself the good things because you don’t trust people or you don’t trust the world anymore and you’ve been hurt,� Tagaq said.

“Living on this earth, where you see so much happen and people who are harming each other, it’s so easy to lose hope. But through this anger, I find hope. Through this anger, I find a sense of justice. Through this anger, I can find healing in me as well and people often will accuse anger of being a bad thing. But it’s a very good thing in some ways.�

Tagaq is also hoping that “Tongues� offers a deeper glimpse into the horrible and lasting multi-generational impact of the residential school system.

“People don’t really comprehend the effects of residential school,� Tagaq said. “Many, many people were forced to go and when you get terrorized in that way, when you get abused in that way, when people purposefully take your language and culture away, there is so much shame. When those children grew up and only had the base of abuse, they don’t have the tools to parent. So these abuses and this pain goes to their children and to their children’s children.

“It’s not easy when you mop up a mess. It’s something that’s going to take a lot of work, and a lot of effort and a lot of elbow grease. It’s going to take effort to resurrect the healthiness that came before residential schools. We are doing it and it’s happening and it’s going to happen, because we didn’t die. We survived. So here we are and now it’s time to face all of this.

“And if I can shine a light on any of it, that’s a good thing.�

Nick Krewen is a Toronto-based freelance contributor for the Star. Reach him via email: octopus@rogers.com