"In my shame there is truth" sings OMBIIGIZI on "Laminate The Sky," the atmospheric pulse of their second album, SHAME. Delving into the Anishinaabe ancestry of its core members, Daniel Monkman (aka Zoon) and Adam Sturgeon (aka Status/Non-Status), OMBIIGIZI's particularly sonic aspect – Indigenous futurism with a heavy dose of 90s Alt, Psych Rock, and Shoegaze – portrays “a visual representation of the world we are in,” a song, at first, and an album that reckons deeply with identity and place. On "Laminate The Sky," 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 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. While the last album [2022's resounding 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 produced with Broken Social Scene's Kevin Drew at The Tragically Hip's Bathouse Studio – promising better tone, wider bliss-to-strident dynamics, 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.
Tracklisting
1. Laminate The Sky
2. Street Names And Land Claims
3. Connecting
4. What Was Said
5. Hands Are Up
6. City Trials
7. Photograph
8. Ziibi
9. Oil Spills
10. Shame