A collaboration between Eastern Algonquin powwow group Eastern Medicine Singers and guitarist/producer/ex-Monotonix member Yonatan Gat, Medicine Singers find no shortage of surreal beauty and unlikely combinations of style and sound on their self-titled debut album. Though most songs use the powwow drums and group vocals as the core focus, the music lifts off when these foundational elements meet with contributions from a wide range of improvisers, experimentalists, and all stripes of musicians not usually associated with ...
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A collaboration between Eastern Algonquin powwow group Eastern Medicine Singers and guitarist/producer/ex-Monotonix member Yonatan Gat, Medicine Singers find no shortage of surreal beauty and unlikely combinations of style and sound on their self-titled debut album. Though most songs use the powwow drums and group vocals as the core focus, the music lifts off when these foundational elements meet with contributions from a wide range of improvisers, experimentalists, and all stripes of musicians not usually associated with the ancestral traditions of powwow music or its modern-day forms. Bandleader Daryl Black Eagle Jamieson steadily guides the vocalists and percussionists as Gat and a host of talented friends sprawl out in all directions around them. The results are almost always psychedelic, in ways that range from jarring and abrasive to transcendently beautiful. The uneasy "Daybreak" disrupts call-and-response chants with blasts of distorted electronics while more subdued instruments simmer in the background. Gat's frenetic, surf-psych guitar style that defined the sound of his former band Monotonix shows up mostly as accents in this and many of the other tunes, taking a more central role only sometimes, as on "Sunrise (Rumble)," a reworking of the Link Wray classic expanded to include noisy synths and driving powwow drums. Medicine Singers veers into dizzying digital wildness ("Shapeshifter," "Hawk Song") but is grounded by contributions from trumpeter Jaimie Branch. Her presence on "Sanctuary" is the peak of the album, as her extended trumpet solo soars to the top of the mix and reflects back all the sadness, struggle, and hope of the song over Max Almario's rolling drums and supportive backing from understated electric piano, bass clarinet, and various mellow electronics. Branch also shines on "Sunset," the contemplative penultimate track. In addition to her spiritually moving trumpet and Gat's psycho-surf guitar playing, the arrangements are filled out with electronics from no wave pioneer Ikue Mori, marimba from Swans member Thor Harris, a barrage of synth waves from Gayngs' Ryan Olson, zither from new age fixture Laraaji, and more. It all gels into an almost supernatural sound, one that can feel tormented, comforting, beautiful, or mournful within the same track. ~ Fred Thomas, Rovi
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