OMBIIGIZI - SHAME

OMBIIGIZI, the Anishinaabe-Canadian band led by Daniel Monkman (aka Zoon) and Adam Sturgeon (aka Status/Non-Status), are releasing their sophomore album, SHAME.

OMBIIGIZI embarks on a starkly honest, yet richly uplifting journey on their new album. “Shame is a thing we all share,” the band says of the album’s title and core theme. “While the last album [2022’s debut Sewn Back Together] 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.” 

Through its irrepressible storytelling and captivating sonics, again recorded with Nyles Spencer along 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 does best – OMBIIGIZI (pronounced om-BEE-ga-ZAY, meaning this is noisy) conjure a future from the remnants of the stolen past.

“Ultimately, the main point of the songs is that within each of us is an ability to love oneself and to heal.”

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. – Waubgeshig Rice