Mali Obomsawin - Automatic (Out of Your Head) [Jazz]
- The Slow Music Movement
- 4 hours ago
- 1 min read
Mali Obomsawin (Abenaki Nation, Odanak) is a boundary-bashing, multi-instrumentalist, singer and composer who roams around North America, content to do her thing or jump on stage with others, and who is unlikely to ever make the same record twice. Her singular, uncompromising approach to music creation is refreshingly already being met with some critical acclaim and interest from festival bookers and music supervisors. I'm in too.
I'm not quite sure where to start with this title-track and teaser for her forthcoming album Automatic - due out in October, but it's perhaps worth pointing out that the album is the result of the "disorienting and emotional journey" through an increasingly music-by-numbers, AI-sloppy, major-label-dominated music industry as a genre-fluid/ambiguous/defying (delete as applicable or choose all three), since her 2022 breakout debut album.
Tough, insistent, distorted punk-rock guitar strumming and what sounds like an old vocal sample give you fair warning this is not heading for daytime radio. The strumming gradually expanding into tight refrains as the drums and bass decide they want in on the fun. The contrabass decide psychobilly jazz fusion is the way, and Obomsawin loops her vocals just for the hell of it. The track then splinters with some sax momentarily piercing the intense fusion gloom, before the musicians decide undulating free jazz and an ambient noise outro is their answer to an "institutional music world", and I couldn't agree more.
Playlist Companion
Find Obomsawin in the Slow Jazz Playlist.
