Zoon, Christopher Sleightholm, and Troll Dolly
Zoon
Big Pharma // Paper Bag Records
Sometimes a new album truly feels like a gift to humankind. Stirring something within your soul. A feeling that you're somehow more connected to the earth. That’s how I would best describe any of the works by Daniel Monkman otherwise known as Zoongidéewin (In Ojibway this means bravery, courage, and the Bear Spirit), known as Zoon for short. Zoon brings forth this blessed gift titled Big Pharma which came out on June 21st, 2022 on National Indigenous People Day with Paper Bag Records. I hope the world is ready to receive this most awesome gift.
Big Pharma is a follow up to Zoon’s Polaris Prize short-listed debut album Bleached Waves in 2020 and will leave as much of a lasting impression as the debut did. The Big Pharma EP radiates a peaceful and serene vibe that is shoegaze or moccasin shoegaze. Monkman, deeply rooted in their heritage, brings some of their culture and tradition into their writing and music. The EP title alone Big Pharma has Zoon bringing awareness as to why the free drugs being offered through health care and reservation treaty cards are causing more harm than help. Why are addictions being fueled rather than healing the root cause? This question applies everywhere, not only within the indigenous community. It makes one question if the business of Big Pharma is here to help or harm. Ponder on this perhaps. I think it is fair to say we have no idea… if only we listened and learned and nurtured our relationships with the people that were here first, I feel we would be in a better place today. It’s not too late to learn.
“Austum” the title of the first track has a very special meaning to Monkman being the first Cree word their late Father, Glen Olsen, had taught them. It means… “hurry up” or “come quickly”. The language they prayed for as a kid. A strong need and desire to preserve the language and culture. “Austum” touches on the difficult realities of addiction and the challenges overcoming them. Society's structure leaves you feeling more lost and longing for real connection. Great relationships one cannot maintain or being unable to function without the need to numb oneself and not facing, acknowledging and healing one’s trauma’s. “Austum” was the first single released and has a music video to accompany it and features Leanne Betasomosake Simpson. The video was pretty wild and it gave the feeling of what it feels like to lose oneself to addiction if it were visually represented. I’ve been there once. That’s the effect this song and video had on me.
Big Pharma features some notable collaborations and displays Zoon’s willingness to push the limits of their creative expression and having the openness to try new concepts and sounds. Like that of the hip hop vibe in “Oil Pastel/DopeSick” which features the flow of Cadence Weapon. This one really resonated. “Don’t it make you think, don’t you go and think about it. Trust your first thought don’t you go and doubt it”. These words and music combined will make some big waves!
“Red River” a collaboration featuring Sunnsetter. It begins with a beat that reminds me of the preset bossa nova tempo on the old organ I played around on as a kid. The song then bursts into a the most beautiful flower. It feels like something blooming with the harps and gentle rhythms or maybe it's the feeling of watching the river float by. Either way, pure bliss.
Zoon is a creative genius and I can’t get enough of the healing and uplifting feeling that this latest EP Big Pharma brings. Almost an irony in that statement I know but I stand with Zoon and the awareness they bring to things people may not like to talk about. Music has always been more about healing to me than anything. This latest gift from Zoon will be sending out healing waves for all who listen! Thank you for this precious gift Zoon. Be good to each other!
Love Always,
Green Noreen
Christopher Sleightholm
The River Flew Right Past // Independent
Known for his work at the helm of experimental psych-country outfit Snake River, multi-instrumentalist Christopher Sleightholm has released his third album under his own name with The River Flew Right Past. While Snake River tends towards the crafting of story-based vignettes and the patient unfolding of cinematic sonic expanses, on this record Sleightholm and his “Beautiful Boys Band” – a cadre of stellar musicians that encompass some of the prairies’ finest, including members of Kacy & Clayton, Rah Rah, and Wolf Willow – have rounded up a twangy, reverb-laden collection of songs that lean heavily into classic honky tonk country and western, while also borrowing from English folk, 60s rock, and psychedelic pop.
The foundation of The River Flew Right Past is a spit-shine bright and jangly sound built from layers of intertwined fingerpicked guitar riffs and dancing pedal steel, alongside steady heel-clicking rhythms and stolling basslines. A key addition comes from the skillful melodic licks of Clayton Linthicum, a picker with an indelibly distinctive presence on the country and roots scene of Western Canada (at this point, if you don’t recognize his guitar work right away, you’ve been missing some of the best music coming out of the prairies). With a loosey-goosey energy and ramshackle two-drinks-in charm, The River Flew Right Past is music made for two-stepping and shit-kicking, with catchy choruses fit for beer-swilling singalongs and an arm draped around your best compadre.
As a lyricist, Sleightholm shares ironic, underdog stories and humourously countrified hooks about losing at love, winning at boozing, and the silver lining of “doing the wrong thing, but doing it the right way.” On “Ain’t No Shame,” he laments what gets left behind when growing older means shacking up and slowing down: “boys, there ain’t no shame in being sober, just admit the good times are over,” while “Don’t Leave Me Hanging On Tonight” makes you think things with the missus might not last – especially when Sleightholm sings “I feel best when I’m alone and drunk at night.” While many of the tracks tend towards classic country tropes that mean it’s okay for a fella to cry (so long as that tear falls into a beer), there are also poetic glimpses of personal histories, painful distances, and old hurts still healing – particularly on the standout “Heading Backward Towards You.”
While Sleightholm and his Beautiful Boys Band can serve up straight honky tonk with their eyes closed (unsurprising, given they have honed their skills over many years of entertaining the downtown Regina bar crowd), they also have a few surprises tucked up under their Stetsons. High-energy track “The Acid Cowboy” serves up more driving rock, while the spacey “Do I Need Anybody At All?” wanders more into psychedelic pop, adding kaleidoscopic strings and effects that’ll make it feel like you’ve blasted off far from the barroom floor. The haunting “Our Love is Almost Gone”, with its sparse Mexican-standoff guitar bends, is the most Snake-River-esque, and will no doubt conjure up scenes from your favourite silver screen Westerns. While diverse, the songs of The River Flew Right Past are unified by the Beautiful Boys’ signature jangle-tonk sound, a clear respect for the craft of the midcentury sounds from which they draw inspiration, and Sleightholm’s always sharp-witted and pointed songwriting.
- Julie Maier
Troll Dolly
Heaven’s Mini Mart // Astoria Tracks
Troll Dolly, aka Jen Yakamovich, has shared an EP of psychedelic greenhouse folk called Heaven’s Mini Mart. Her soft vocals, powerful and precise, deliver fresh and complex lyrics that weave within kaleidoscopes of botanical arrangements.
Heaven’s Mini Mart opens with “Microcosms”, a song that emerges like flowers blooming in stop motion. About the song, Yakamovich says: “Like a lot of my writing, it’s a bit cheeky...it’s about negotiating power in creative and romantic relationships.” The bouncy, intentional arrangements present here and throughout the EP do hold humour, or at least a light heartedness. It’s also in the self-awareness of the lyrics, and the timing and restraint of their delivery.
The themes that Yakamovich deals in on Heaven’s Mini Mart include spectatorship, the human gaze, the idea of finding clarity through seeing obliquely… these heady notions are best painted with a light stroke. The vocal styling and production is cohesive with this vision for the EP: "We use layering and collage to build little soundscapes, and I incorporate my words/vocals this way as well— they’re another layer you sometimes have to dig for”.
“Please allow me to introduce my self worth”, Yakamovich sings in “Fishin’”, the third song on the EP. It’s a bouncy, life-affirming groove that includes guitar flourishes akin to fish skimming the water’s surface, coming up for food, and sending ripples across the pond. The next song, a brief instrumental called “Long Lake”, may feature the same body of water as the previous track, but it’s quiet and moonlit. This juxtaposition is something present throughout the EP: Yakamovich describes it as “the contrast between my deliberate slowness/yearning for something, and a more frenetic and flashy energy.”
“Sauna Song”, the first single off the EP, is a slowly building ceremony of sound. Its patchwork production includes strings, hammers, sticks, mallets, pads, voice, field recordings and found instruments. Of this choice, Yakamovich says: “I’m a percussionist, so I’m obsessed with texture- woody, watery, gritty, lush.” All of this and more is available within this exciting and promising debut EP from Troll Dolly.
- Sophie Noel
