OMBIIGIZI, Basia Bulat, and The Golden Age of Wrestling
OMBIIGIZI
Sewn Back Together// Arts & Crafts
Each time I review an album, I know as I transcend into the artists' creations that they have poured countless hours into, navigated through creative decisions, and undoubtedly over analyzed and criticized their own choices. There is always an exciting expectation to discover and learn something new. Well, OMBIIGIZI - pronounced [om-BEE-ga-ZAY], certainly did exactly that. OMBIIGIZI is a collaboration between Daniel Monkman and Adam Sturgeon of Zoon and Status/Non-Status respectively. Now, here is where my learning and discovery took a path I wasn’t expecting! The duo of Monkman and Sturgeon are Anishnaabe artists who explore their cultural histories through sound. Anishnaabe, defined as, the good humans, those who are on the right road or path given to them by the Creator. Most importantly, what I have taken away from Sewn Back Together, is a realization of what can be accomplished when a collaboration manifests into a pre chosen vision, and when one allows the sound that calls to be created, is allowed to become alive. What do I mean by this? For example, sit back and play one of their tracks, say “Ogiin”. It will carry you on an amazing thick sound blanket filled with calming, and rich textures and harmonious vocals and harmonies. In fact, let me correct myself, start with “Ogiin” and let the album play until the final track, “Zaagitoon”. It truly is a peaceful and musical journey with unlimited depths.
I again, have to emphasize how inspiring it is when one, or in this case, two deeply rooted musicians allow the music to lead them to their destination, surrendering to the desire to direct. Sewn Back Together’s intro track, “Cherry Coke”, admittedly is what drew me into reviewing and exploring the album and artists. It starts off with deep, full, driving and subtly pounding drums which are accompanied by layers of acoustic guitars. The song beautifully builds upon itself and takes you to a peak of harmonies brought on by vocals and electric guitars. The mix of the album was wonderfully executed, allowing every sound to fill the sonic spaces. I believe an amount of appreciation should be afforded to Kevin Drew and Nyles Spenser as they reportedly helped steer and produce Sewn Back Together.
I strongly believe music can heal, and if you need sounds to help you catch your breath and find inner calm, there are more than a few tracks on the album that will do just that.
“Headphones. That’s the only way to listen to music. It’s all kinds of different emotions because you get real quiet and comfortable and just listen to it.” ~ Gregg Allman
- Branton Langley
Basia Bulat
The Garden // Secret City
A retrospective is a rare treat that has the potential to satisfy the curiosities and desires of artists and longtime listeners alike. Basia Bulat’s The Garden delivers a selection of 16 songs selected from her five-LP repertoire, reimagined and suspended in pulsing string arrangements by Academy Award-nominated collaborator Owen Pallet, Paul Frith (the xx, Radiohead, Bear’s Den), and cellist Zou Zou Robidoux.
Across the 16 songs, produced by herself and Mark Lawson (Arcade Fire, Beirut), Bulat sings into the space between then and now. Her voice, captivating as ever, is afforded a space and perspective by both the arrangement and concept of the album that results in a suite of songs that feel self-possessed and rich. "I sing the songs differently now," Bulat says of this phenomenon, "it's the gift of time.”
“Tall Tall Shadow (The Garden Version)” opens with a haunting peal of strings that part to reveal a piano ballad that, on paper, follows true to the original, but breaks wide open in a way that the original only hinted at. This trend tracks throughout the LP- a little less reverb on the vocals here, a slight slowing of tempo there, and a stripping away of all bells and whistles (in some cases quite literally) to reveal a raw and mature rendering of Bulat’s classic and timeless writing.
A song not to miss is “I Was A Daughter (The Garden Version)”, a rendition of a song off of Bulat’s 2007 debut LP Oh, My Darling. The original is a driving and percussive anthem among the collection that launched Bulat into Canadian indie infamy. In the 2021 rearrangement, the strings open in an exquisitely wistful introduction fit for the Vienna Philharmonic. Bulat’s voice, present and focused, presents the words that she wrote before her career as we know it now began. We can only imagine what it means to revisit the meanings of these early works, and how they must have changed over time. Pallett, Frith, and Robidoux’s work on this track is an achievement. The song concludes with a plucked and spacious repetition of the theme, reverberating like drops of water into a glassy pond.
Bulat’s celebrated and gilded career has reached a new height with The Garden, or has it reached a new depth? In any case, it confirms that this musician’s powers are growing with time. We can look forward to enjoying the fruits of what is to come for Bulat, which will include, as she found out and subsequently revealed through the studio microphone to her collaborators while recording this LP, the arrival of her first child.
- Sophie Noel
The Golden Age of Wrestling
Crossface Chicken Wing // Surviving The Game
Surviving The Game is the pop record label making all the fuzz in Vancouver with its initial hit in Devours’ Escape from Planet Devours (2021) and the multiple set of playlist hyping up the work by other musicians in their community. The label has been an endeavour by Jeff Cancade seeking to give decisive liberty to label artists in the creative and promotional aspects of their releases as well as to bring to light the extent of Vancouver’s breadth of music which by enlarge ends up remaining underground. In kicking off the label, Cancade’s two distinct musical personas are the building block line up for STG. And following up on the debut for The Golden Age of Wrestling in Tombstone Piledriver (2020), TGAOW is back with the release of Crossface Chicken Wing on February 25, 2022.
It might be worth highlighting the differences between these personas’ musical styles and approach - for one, Devours tends to lean towards a more intensive synth punk style ranging from bratty vocals to an emotional singing upheaval, whereas The Golden Age of Wrestling focuses around an ambient sound inspired by chamber music often feature nods at video game music, Hollywood films, and warped vocal samples.
Right off the start, Crossface Chicken Wing starts with the candour of “i miss eating big league chew and watching nitro in the basement of your old house,” starting off with upbeat rhythmic melodies that make way for a drum roll into the full swing of the song that glimmers in in 8-bit sound and warped vocals captivating almost a vaporwave aesthetic. Thematically, this sort of sound captivates reflections on the past and working through grief - the following tracks “almanac” and “outlaw run” slow down to describe this state of cryogenic depression with melancholic guitars and deep atmospheric synth making for a reflective emotional track. The most abrupt change in energy comes up in “body shots montage” (ft. Devours), where the two approaches from TGAOW and Devours meet up in an atmospheric chamber track capturing the delicateness of Devours’ singing. This energy is maintained into “rotweiller,” whose rhythmic synths retain this upbeat groove leading up to an empty silence that clears the way for an astonishing bass drop adorned in twinkling synths. Other tracks like “16mm dream sequence” capture this nostalgic edge with its use of cassette player sounds and lo-fi atmosphere. And the finisher “koala kisses” brings it back to this overdriving 8-bit sound, which while melodically upbeat, warped and changes throughout the song to reflect its own transformation into this chamber reflective density.
In this persona exploration, Jeff Cancade has fleshed out two distinct identities as they each have their own definitive sounds and expressions in ways that it is conceivable that Devours would feature in a TGAOW song without it sounding just like Devours. This creative cultivation is clearly yielding results, not just in the incredible output of both identities but also in the characterization and growth of this personas. TGAOW’s sophomore album speaks to how fleshed out the sound initiated in Tombstone Piledriver has become, as Crossface Chicken Wing is setting itself as a staple of Surviving The Game with astonishing production and caring reflections.
- Simone A. Medina Polo
