OMBIIGIZI – Laminate The Sky (Official Music Video)

From the album ‘SHAME’ out Nov 1, 2024 via Arts & Crafts:
https://ombiigizi.lnk.to/shame

Directed by Jordan Allen
Filmed by Marshall Stonefish
Photography by Marshall Stonefish and Natasha Roberts

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“In my shame there is truth” OMBIIGIZI sings on “Laminate The Sky,” the pulse of ‘SHAME,’ the sophomore album and follow-up to the Anishinaabe-Canadian band’s Polaris and Juno nominated ‘Sewn Back Together.’ Delving into the ancestry of its core members Daniel Monkman (aka Zoon) and Adam Sturgeon (aka Status/Non-Status) with OMBIIGIZI’s particularly sonic aspect – Indigenous futurism with a heavy dose of 90s Alt, Psych Rock, and Shoegaze – “Laminate The Sky” portrays “a visual representation of the world we are in,” Monkman says. With the first cheaply plasticized treaty cards (“that no stores would accept”) as poetic reference, OMBIIGIZI’s vaporous melodies and uncharacteristically stripped back guitars and rhythm set SHAME alight with a perfect mix of terrestrial and spiritual elements.

“‘Laminate The Sky’ to us symbolizes freedom in a lot of ways,” the band says. “The idea comes from these things that Indigenous people are given at birth called a status card. Back in the day, they’d give you this crappy cardboard paper with a cheap laminated seal that everyone off the reservation thought was fake. Nowadays, we have high-tech ones that I scan at the border to go work in the United States, but even ten years ago my pass to get off the reservation would be rejected in the city. It was a rude awakening in my formative years, being self-conscious of my place.”

LYRICS

Need more time / covered in your ties
Lush and green / smothered by the dream
Mooshum / gaagaagi
Late august moon
Wild rice and you and you

When you speak with nothing
Nothing left to say
Long forgotten promises
Oil broken dreams
In my shame there is truth
Laminate the sky
Simulation where you go
Laminate the sky

Don’t wanna believe / this might be the end
Lived a hundred lives / within a hundred lies
Weather balloon / red lake gloom
Sundown on the land / blood orange sky, skies