OMBIIGIZI

Pronounced om-BEE-ga-ZAY (“s/he is noisy” in Anishinaabemowin) – OMBIIGIZI is a collaboration between Adam Sturgeon and Daniel Monkman, Anishinaabeg artists who explore their cultural histories through sound.

The two found each other on winding musical paths that seemed destined to intertwine. Both were engaged in solo projects – Sturgeon as Status/Non-Status, and Monkman as Zoon creating the mesmerizing Polaris Prize shortlisted Bleached Wavves. The two crossed paths in 2018, discovering their musical likemindedness through a confluence of Broken Social Scene and Tragically Hip connections. Thus began a collaboration that is striking in its impromptu and fluid creativity. It’s art rock with what Monkman calls “moccasin gaze” elements of lo-fi guitars and distortion, but also fluid time signatures and tender arrangements of pianos and acoustic guitars.

All of this underlays moving and skewering lyrics that speak about Canada's current reckoning with its history of residential school systems, or about honouring elders, or about simply felt pleasures, with all of it exploring what Sturgeon calls Indigenous Futurisms – “finding the past to picture a future which is not always so easy here and now.”