to be continued...
The name Kashtin, commonly just explained as "tornado", appears to be a play on words. For the magazine Music Express, Florent Vollant once explained that in Innu, it means "tornado on the horizon" or, conversely, "good times ahead." In English it is pronounced "cashed in", which he said was their way of having fun with friends who said they had sold out. ("Kashtin - Innu Dawn Rising" by Alastair Sutherland, Music Express Vol. 145 1990, 44)
The Music Encyclopedia mentions how Kashtin became known by a larger audience and landed their first record deal: At a local festival, a TV crew from Montreal filmed Kashtin for a documentary. Guy Trepanier, head of Groupe Concept Musique and Les Productions Avanti Plus, was impressed with their television debut and brought them to Montreal to record a demo. Their self-titled album was released in 1989 on the record label of Trans Canada Disc.
Kashtin released their second album "Innu" in 1991. Kashtin's third album Akua Tuta was its first for Sony, but the duo put a hold on further recording to convince the record label to put more support behind their work. (See Magazine, 11/28/96) By 1997, they had sold 400,000 records since they released their first album (MacLean's, 1/20/97). 1996 sources name 350,000 sold copies of their first two albums and 40,000 sold copies of "Akua Tuta". (CP article of 12/26/96 on CANOE Network)
In 1997, Claude McKenzie released his solo CD "Innu Town" for which he was nominated for a Juno Award in "Best Music of Aboriginal Canada". (Info: Post by A. Brascoupe on Rainbowwalker Music Questions Board, 11/4/99) Concerning the reasons for him going solo, the magazine MacLean's (1/20/97, p. 53) quotes him saying: "Florent has a wife and four kids, so he needed time off from the road." And he pointed out that after 15 years, Florent Vollant was still his closest friend. (A number that supports 1982 as the year when they started playing together, see above.)
When Kashtin performed at the film festival "Presence Autochtones" on June 20, 1998 as part of the program "Solstice Rouge", this was called Kashtin's "return to the scene" (Planete Quebec) and the festival program referred to it as "the return of the tornado" (Solstice Rouge).
According to their booking agent Ann Brascoupe (posting on Rainbowwalker Music Questions Board), Kashtin does still perform together. As of June 1999, they were doing individual projects. Florent Vollant was in Paris, France in April 1999 as the Master of Ceremonies with other Quebec aboriginal artists and was also performing in Quebec. Claude McKenzie was scheduled to go to New Brunswick in July 1999. (Info from various posts of 6/12/99.)
At the American Indian Film Festival 1999 in San Francisco, Claude McKenzie received the "Best Music Video" award for Innu Town.
In November 1999, Florent Vollant released the solo CD "Nipaiamianan", a collection of traditional Innu Christmas songs and classic Christmas songs in Innu. In summer of 2000, he finished a television show called "Red Solstice" that aired in Canada in November 2000.
On March 4, 2001, he won the Juno Award in the "Best Music of Aboriginal Canada" category for "Nipaiamianan".