by David Wilikofsky
Ombiigizi is the project of Daniel Monkman and Adam Sturgeon, two Anishinaabe artists hailing from Canada. Though each has their own distinct individual musical language, a shared interest in exploring their cultural heritage through their art unites them; Sturgeon’s other project’s name, Status/Non-Status, refers to the impact of the Indian Register on Indigenous peoples’ lives, while Monkman’s project Zoon mixes shoegaze textures with traditional First Nations sounds. The two first met in 2018, but their desire to collaborate only came to fruition last year. Sewn Back Together, their debut album as a duo, came together through a series of recording sessions with Kevin Drew (of Broken Social Scene fame) at the recording studio The Bathouse. It’s an album that creates a space to explore the commonalities and differences of Monkman and Sturgeon’s musical languages and cultural heritages.
Ombiigizi roughly translates to “it is noisy” in English, which almost seems like a misnomer when listening to the album. As part of the recording process, both artists tried to pare down their musical voices to their bare essentials in order to build a shared language together. The results stand apart in their respective catalogs; it represents some of the most pastoral yet genre-bending work either artist has released. “Ookwemin” is buoyed by a gentle guitar melody and sweet, drifting vocals that seem to dissolve on impact, while the repeated titular phrase of “Yaweh” turns into a meditative mantra by the track’s end. Even harder rocking tracks like “Burch Bark Paper Trails” give themselves room to breathe, zig zagging between hard driving riffs and atmospheric interludes. Genre is malleable; one moment you might hear meditative post rock, the next angular guitar lines paired with autotuned vocals. It’s free music in the truest sense of the word, one whose vision is unfettered by any preconceived notions of musical boundaries.
A line from “The Spirit In Me” best articulates the album’s thesis: “The spirit in me is my family / The past and the future.” There are undoubtedly personal moments peppered throughout the album; opening track “Ookwemin” is a reminiscence about Monkman’s father, while instrumental “Niiyo” is dedicated to Sturgeon’s son. But most of Sewn Back Together focuses on the commonalities of the Indigenous experience, both past and present. From shared traumas (such as how the the residential school system continues to have lingering impact on Indigenous communities in Canada) to shared culture (from the role of mothers in Indigenous families to mythological spirits like Gitche Manitou), the album articulates some of the unspoken ties that bind these two artists and their communities together. As such, the title of the album can and should be taken literally. Sewn Back Together is the sound of two artists coming together in harmony, thereby amplifying their individual and shared truths to the world.