When You Bring the Songs Back, You Are Going to Bring the People Back

February 14, 2019 10:22 PM

Jeremy Dutcher is a First Nations classically trained tenor, musician, and composer whose debut album Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa [Youtube playlist], sung entirely in the "severely endangered" language of Wolastoqey, won the 2018 Polaris Prize, which is awarded annually to the best full-length Canadian music album. You can watch him perform a stunning medley of his album at the Polaris Gala, and accept the prize. Dutcher is a Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) member of the Tobique First Nation, and his album is based on traditional Wolastoqiyik songs, often sampling century-old wax cylinder recordings of his ancestors' singing, to devastatingly beautiful effect.

From the NPR profile Jeremy Dutcher, The Newest Light In Canada's Indigenous Renaissance:

Dutcher's art is also centered on telling his people's story on his own terms, in order to rebut the narrow interpretations that media, movies and music often present of what indigenous people can be and the kinds of art they can create. This includes offering string quartets, piano ballads, and choral pieces in his people's language — subverting Western musical structures and allowing his people's music to exist in parity with colonial traditions.

From The Walrus, How Jeremy Dutcher Keeps His Ancestors' Language Alive:

At the turn of the twentieth century, William Mechling, an anthropologist, travelled to New Brunswick to study the Wolastoqiyik, an Indigenous group in the region. Between 1907 and 1914, he collected more than 100 wax-cylinder recordings of people in Neqotkuk (also known as the Tobique First Nation) singing traditional songs, while, in the background, others from the nation spoke in Wolastoqey and played the drums. These soundtracks of the community’s culture would end up in archives for more than a century, unavailable to the very people they had been extracted from. And, over time, as the landscape of New Brunswick changed and the Wolastoqiyik were displaced from their territory by government, the community saw its music and culture begin to slip away.

Nearly a century later, Jeremy Dutcher, a musician who grew up in Negotkuk, listened to Mechling’s wax recordings for the first time. Maggie Paul, a Wolastoqiyik elder, had found the recordings in Ottawa and, in 2012, encouraged Dutcher to study them.

posted by yasaman (16 comments total)

As soon as I heard Jeremy Dutcher's Mehcinut on CBC Radio, I bought it and listened to it on repeat. It is spooky and elegant and elegiac and celebratory. One of my favourite pieces of music from last year. Thank you for making this post!
posted by hurdy gurdy girl at 11:59 PM on February 14, 2019 [2 favorites]

Oh I am delighted to see Jeremy Dutchet on MeFi.

He’s one of the most compelling musicians I’ve encountered in recent years. I still haven’t seen him live. Last year his NY debut gig was canceled for visa reasons at the last minute. This time my own band has a gig the same night 50 miles away.

This guy is the real deal: an artist.
posted by spitbull at 4:00 AM on February 15, 2019

This album is amazing.
posted by parki at 4:03 AM on February 15, 2019

Indigenous artists mastering, surpassing, and subverting classical European genres are awesome.
posted by anthill at 4:31 AM on February 15, 2019 [3 favorites]

Thank you, thank you.

I've been avoiding NPR for mental health reasons, but it also means I miss cool music.
posted by allthinky at 5:16 AM on February 15, 2019

We saw him in December at a small venue in Guelph, Ontario - he's a great performer. I wasn't sure what to expect knowing only his recordings but it was a really engaging and entertaining show. If you get a chance to see him, he's worth it. CBC profile on him.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:21 AM on February 15, 2019

Oh and an extended interview with him here.
posted by Ashwagandha at 5:27 AM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

Listening to it now. It's a really nice recording. Simple, not over-processed. So nice to hear vocals without frigging autotune.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:59 AM on February 15, 2019

My friend Andrew Balfour, Artistic Director of Winnipeg's Camerata Nova is currently spending time with Dutcher and other indigenous artists, at the Banff Centre. It's a "where do we go from here?" meeting of the minds. (Andrew says the increased time and travel pressures on Dutcher since winning the Polaris have been a real challenge for him to manage, while continuing to be creative.)
posted by kneecapped at 6:31 AM on February 15, 2019

Got the album as a present a few months ago. It’s wonderful.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 6:55 AM on February 15, 2019

Last year his NY debut gig was canceled for visa reasons at the last minute.

I thought members of first nations were allowed to cross the border freely, what with their nations pre-dating the border and all. I wonder if the issue was with a band member or something.
posted by If only I had a penguin... at 7:34 AM on February 15, 2019

I posted about him in the best of 2018 post. He’s just phenomenal. One of the best musical things that happened last year.
posted by Lutoslawski at 7:40 AM on February 15, 2019

I saw him at Global Fest in Manhattan last month and he made a crappy nightclub space with terrible accoustics go silent and rapt. In-between songs, he seemed wonderfully earnest, alternating between awkward and goofy and passionate.
posted by minervous at 8:45 AM on February 15, 2019

This is fantastic! Thank you.
posted by notsnot at 2:40 PM on February 15, 2019

Another wholehearted recommendation here.

Despite the layer of crackliness and low-fidelity, there's a real contrast in what I can only call ‘gaze’ in the performances as recorded by Mechling and those performed by Dutcher. Mechling recorded the voices as those of the other, while Dutcher performs in and for the voices of his own.
posted by scruss at 4:28 PM on February 15, 2019 [1 favorite]

Follow up: I had planned to buy the LP, but then...who knows, I forgot and closed the tab.

Today, I was at the local record store AND THEY HAD IT IN STOCK! So I bought one.

Thank you for priming the purchase pump!
posted by notsnot at 6:20 PM on March 2, 2019