OMBIIGIZI - SHAME (2024) Hi-Res

"In my shame there is truth" OMBIIGIZI sings on the album opening track, laying down the atmospheric pulse of their followup to the much lauded debut, 2022’s Polaris Music Prize finalist and JUNO Award nominated Sewn Back Together. Delving into the Anishinaabe ancestry of its core members, with OMBIIGIZI's particularly sonic aspect – Indigenous futurism with a heavy dose of 90s Alt, Psych Rock, and Shoegaze – "Laminate The Sky" portrays “a visual representation of the world we are in,” Monkman says. With the first cheaply plasticized treaty cards ("that no stores would accept") as poetic reference, OMBIIGIZI's vaporous melodies, mingling with uncharacteristically stripped back guitars and gentle rhythmic propulsion, set the band's gripping sophomore album – SHAME – alight, with its perfect mix of terrestrial and spiritual elements.

"Shame is a thing we all share," the band says of the album's title and core theme. "While the last album focused a lot on the positive force of healing despite odds, SHAME let’s things slide - it shares the things we don’t always say, it calls to others to heal and reminds them it’s OK - to feel, to be angry or sad, and that the world we experience can set the drag on high. But always it calls you in and forward."

A song, at first, and an album that reckons deeply with identity and place. Following the recent singles "Connecting" and "Ziibi," OMBIIGIZI now embarks on the starkly honest yet richly uplifting work entitled SHAME, out November 1 via Arts & Crafts.

Through its irrepressible storytelling and captivating sonics, again produced with Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew at The Tragically Hip's Bathouse Studio in Kingston, Ontario – promising better tone, wider strident-to-bliss dynamics, more of what this collusion of creative souls exists to do best –OMBIIGIZI (pronounced om-BEE-ga-ZAY, meaning this is noisy) conjure a future from the remnants of the stolen past.

The Anishinaabe revival is accelerating. Our artists are becoming more resurgent in all realms: telling the stories, singing the songs, and creating the imagery to further solidify our everlasting presence on this land. The soundtrack to this movement is diverse, profound, and beautiful. The Anishinaabe sonic revolution is richly layered and wide-reaching, inspiring and influencing all generations to gather, sing, and speak, as we’ve always done. And at the core of this renewal are artists like Ombiigizi.

Adam Sturgeon (aka Status/Non-Status) and Daniel Monkman (aka Zoon) have come together in the spirit of making noise in a good way for our people. They have documented this moment in time while paying homage to the ancestors who kept our language and stories alive. There is embedded in it a deep respect and love for Anishinaabe sounds and voices. They proudly tell family and community stories, and they exquisitely conjure a hopeful future that will result from our current collective efforts to share our realities with each other and the world.