Anishinabe writer, composer and performer Daniel Monkman has his hands full these days, between a film music commission, his solo project Zoon and his band OMBIIGIZI. Three weeks after his stopover at the Emerging Music Festival, he returns to the city at the invitation of the Pop Montreal festival.
A return to the Quebec city, where, “for the first time in my life, I found myself spending a lot of time recently. All of a sudden, I made lots of friends! says the Toronto-born Manitoban who, in just three years, has established himself as one of the leading voices of indie rock in Canada.
A busy year
Zoon and OMBIIGIZI are two completely different projects aesthetically, one nourishing the other and, through this osmosis, giving birth to new musical ideas in Monkman. The first project, inspired by the shoegaze movement, first serves as an exploration of the infinite sounds of the electric guitar, while the second allows him, like his co-founder Adam Sturgeon, to let off steam with frankly more lively rock.
“With the guys in the band, I like to joke by telling them that we’re doing commercial rock compared to Zoon! he said jokingly. “OMBIIGIZI is the spirit of collaboration between musicians, which I can’t really recreate by working on Zoon, a more controlled, studied project. In OMBIIGIZI, I seek liberation through collaboration, and I learn a lot from that,” as evidenced by the first of two excellent microalbums released under the Zoon name this year, where each song showcases the voice of a different guest musician, who stands out in the thick cloud of harmonies, textures and timbres of the electric guitars.
Thus, Dan Monkman lives a record year, between his solo project and that of the group, both invited to make noise these days by the Pop Montreal festival. Sewn Backthe indie rock duo’s debut album released earlier this year, was a finalist in the race for the Polaris Prize, won by Pierre Kwenders.
Two years earlier, it was the Bleached Waves de Zoon, who was shortlisted for the Canadian award; Since then, Monkman has released two mini-albums, BigPharma last summer, and all fresh A Sterling Murmurationenough to make us wait until the release of the next full album in six months.
Create with instinct
“I have just received the final mix of the album, which will be released in March,” Monkman tells us. “I think it will be even better than the first,” he adds, describing it as a more “edgy” set of songs, complete with string orchestrations by Basia Bulat collaborator Sharon Pallett. Van Etten, The Weather Station or Klô Pelgag.
What inspired him to take this new path? “John Williams,” he replies tit for tat. “There is this composition, A Tree For My Bedtaken from his soundtrack of Jurassic Park (1993) — good, remove Jurassic Park of the equation and will simply appreciate the work, it is superb. When I was younger, I never realized how beautiful this music is, but having become a musician and composer of screen music myself, I understand the exploit of creating an emotion from nothing. »
And how does he himself create his music? By instinct, Dan replies. “Most of my songs are born out of improvisation. I never know in which direction I’m going when I start composing. I take a guitar, I strum it and I sing whatever words come to mind, it’s random. I then need to spend a few months with these draft songs to understand what they mean and what I need to express through them. Same for the texts: I search in my subconscious, I let the lyrics come out on their own. Often I reflect on the past to help me find meaning in the present and the future. »
A political gesture
Daniel Monkman grew up on a reserve near Selkirk, a small town north of Winnipeg. There was no CD player or record player at home. Only a radio, and his family, amateur musicians. “In my family, when we organized parties, there was always a small stage with guitars and violins, the old ones played folk and bluegrass. They inspired me to continue, but in a more contemporary way. It was through the radio that he discovered Nirvana, at the age of 8 or 9, and thanks to his friend Scott that he then explored punk, which marked him forever.
Also protesting the music of Zoon and OMBIIGIZI? Not in the text, but by force of circumstance, explains Monkman: “In fact, just being indigenous and composing music is a political gesture in itself. It’s a gesture of resilience, especially at my age. According to statistics in Canada, I should be dead by now. My father passed away not so long ago, and he was not old. Two of my friends also recently passed away. For me, to still be alive and making music is to make the statistics lie. »
In concert on 1er October, starting at 4 p.m., at Entrepôt 77, with HARU NEMURI, Pelada, Witch Prophet, Ura Star & Fireball Kid, Paris Pick and Father Figuer, during Pop Montréal