If It's Too Loud...

I can't think of anyone making music these days quite like Mali Obomsawin. According to a press release, their latest single, "Wawasint8da," "...  is a Jesuit hymn taken from the strange story of 'The Harrowing of Hell,' an obscure religious tract that tells of Jesus traveling into hell to liberate souls who had died outside of the Catholic faith ." It also includes an ancient mourning song Obomsawin was taught by a Passamaquoddy citizen. Musically the song starts off rooted in traditional folk and jazz in an almost stodgy way. It feels like "Wawasint8da" starts off almost overly traditional to make what is coming even more effective. Slowly the song starts getting more loose and warping into this dissonant version of free jazz that sounds more like a rootsy version of James Chance. "Wawasint8da" is most certainly not going to be for everyone, but it certainly deserves for everyone to give it a shot. You can listen to "Wawasint8d...

Photo via Facebook The new single from Mali Obomsawi is one of the most unique and powerful pieces of music we've heard in a while. "Odana" combines traditional Abenaki culture with jazz. It starts off a brass band which is inspired by the marching bands Jesuit priests would bring to reservations. It then evolves into a seventeenth century Abenaki ballad done in free jazz. Obomsawi has crafted a compelling and important song that I'm hardly doing any justice with my description. Mali Obomsawin explains her new song much better than I can: "The first song, 'Odana', looks to the reservation community where I’m enrolled. Odana is a Wabanaki word for ‘the village’ – and Odanak, the name of our Abenaki reservation in southern Quebec, means 'at the village.' Writer unknown, this ballad is a homage to this home that our ancestors founded in the late 1600s. "'Odana' tells the story of those ancestors who fled to modern-day Canada to escape bi...