Motewolonuwok: Vinyl LP

Five years after winning the Polaris Music Prize with his ground-breaking debut, Jeremy Dutcher has returned witha radiant exploration of contemporary Indigeneity and his place within it. With songs performed in his peoples Wolasotqey language but also, for the first time, in English,Motewolonuwokextends beyond anything the musician has made before, encompassing traditional song, starlit ballads and staggering orchestrations.With my first record, the concept was so clear, so complete, Dutcher says.This time, I wanted [to make an LP] that wasnt always so sure of itself.

Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, released in 2018, vaulted Dutcher into the upper echelons of Canadian performance, from the Polaris and Juno Award stages to the judges panel onCanadas Drag Race.The follow-up is more intimate, more personal, inspired by his growing understanding of the middle space of being Two SpiritIndigenous and queer. In the Wolasotqey language, Two Spirit people are called motewolonuwokthepeople of great spiritual poweran identity filled with strength and knowledge, which is not dogged by shame.

Dutcher came out as gay when he was 12but even that idea, of coming out, was imposed upon him by a colonialist framework.Motewolonuwokis a stepping-through and singing-into his full identity. On tahcuwi Anelsultipon, Dutcher stands almost alone on a stage, singing about devotion. The Land That Held Them, his tribute to the ones taken too soon, shudders with a force that recalls Nina Simone and Anohni. Elsewhere, Dutcher reached for the largest possible frame: a full orchestra, with arrangements by Owen Pallett, and, on tracks like Sakom, a 12-voice choir made up of Dutchers queer and allied kin, including friends from music school and members of the Queer Songbook Orchestra.

Making music is like learning a language, Dutcher says. Its an unfurlinga constant exploration of what you want to say and how you can express it.MotewolonuwokfeaturesWolastoqey traditionals,poetry from by the Cherokee poet Qwo-li Driskill, but also Dutchers first songs written in English. This is an acknowledgment of his fathers tongue, and also a way of singing directly to the newcomer [settler], intheirown language, to tell his communitys stories of grief, resilience and emergence. I needed to contextualize my own story, he explains, andMotewolonuwokmoves like a collective wish and a corrective medicine.

Tracks:

1. Skicinuwihkuk
2. Pomawsuwinuwok Wonakiyawolotuwok
3. Take My Hand
4. Wolasweltomultine
5. tahcuwi Anelsultipon
6. Sakom
7. Ancestors Too Young
8. The Land That Held Them
9. There I Wander
10. Together We Emerge
11. Rise in Beauty