Unbound by Bizhiki
We should respect artistic traditions more than we should respect most societal traditions, but we shouldn’t revere any tradition so much that we let it stagnate. The distinction between respect and reverence seems to guide Unbound, a collaboration among Dylan Bizhikiins Jennings, Joseph K. Rainey Sr., and Sean Carey: two Ojibwe singers and an indie-famous Eau Claire-based musician.
Jennings and Rainey bring their training and experience as Ojibwe powwow singers, with the concomitant duties both to honor and to serve their tribe and their communities. Carey brings his experience as a key member of Justin Vernon’s Bon Iver and a solo career, under the moniker S. Carey, of sonic layering and chamber-hush vocals.
Because Carey leans toward internal, private music and Jennings and Rainey want to communicate to neighbors as well as to the larger world, Unbound vibrates with constant tension. The title track exemplifies that: Carey and Pieta Brown’s electronically massaged crooning and Stephen Garrington’s heartbeat-mimicking drum programming bring the skirling chants and sepulchral grunts of Jennings and Rainey into shocking, strident relief.
“Nashke!” tilts the weight toward Carey’s softness with two basslines, cautious piano and lead vocal, and an overall production sensibility that feels like a morning fog slowly being blown away by the earthier cries of Rainey and Jennings.
Those two shift the weight in their direction on “Trying to Live,” incorporating a Led Zeppelin-heavy beat as the pace of the protest march that their multitracked voices develop from the supposed resignation of “They don’t want us to live here/We’re just trying to live.”
When the tension abates, there can be a moment like “She’s All We Have,” a ballad of limpid simplicity within which Michael Lewis’s melancholy saxophone enhances Jennings’s plaintive desire for kind treatment of Mother Earth. An open-minded, open-hearted kindness among collaborators unifies modernity and tradition on Unbound.
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