After twelve hours of persistent rain from the remnants of Hurricane Beryl over the Atlantic Ocean, Medicine Singers found themselves high and dry on Wednesday evening, headlining the only tented outdoor stage at Ottawa Bluesfest. After receiving rave reviews for their 2022 self-titled debut album, which featured guests like guitarist Yonatan Gat (formerly of Monotonix), drummer Ikue Mori and new age legend Laraaji, the East Algonquin powwow group decided to recreate their wildly experimental and collaborative sound for their live performance.
During their first-ever performance in Ottawa, the trio of Daryl "Black Eagle" Jamieson, Ray Two Hawks Watson, and Arthur Red Medicine Crippen took the stage surrounded by an equally unconventional troop of musicians. This included the aforementioned Gat, former Sonic Youth guitarist/vocalist Lee Ranaldo, Daniel Monkman (a.k.a. Zoon), Swans bassist Christopher Pravdica and drummer Cinque "Ignabu" Kemp (known for his work with Macklemore and Flatbush Zombies).
Joined by Monkman and seated around a powwow drum, Jamieson, Watson and Crippen provided the heartbeat of the set — a ceaseless rhythm that inspired Ranaldo and Gat's unbridled guitar explorations. Extending three-minute tracks from their LP into 15-minute jams held together by the powwow drummers' vocals, the Medicine Singers' backing band expanded and illuminated their technicolour creations with added intensity. Ignabu maintained eye contact with his fellow drummers, injecting increasingly unconventional drum fills as the set progressed. Meanwhile, bassist Pravdica anchored a sleek rhythm, often positioned discreetly behind the powwow drummers at the rear of the stage.
While Ranaldo harnessed his massive set of guitar pedals to create sonic landscapes, occasionally employing his phone as an Ebow or simply a physical bow, Gat used this space to unleash lightning-fast guitar phrasings and jagged noodlings that threatened to fly off the rails. As the group moved into "Sunrise (Rumble)," the sparse crowd's pensiveness turned to joy as the track transitioned into Link Wray's most iconic riff.
In the absence of late musician Jaimie Branch's trumpet parts, which played an important role in the mood of Medicine Singers' debut LP, Ranaldo and Gat brilliantly substituted these parts with a variety of otherworldly sounds. Yonatan hunched over a mini synthesizer, while Lee created echoed resonances by manipulating a makeshift contraption featuring antennas strung over two guitar pickups, which he would scrape across the stage floor.
Going well over their scheduled 75-minute performance slot, Medicine Singers unleashed an eclectic and eccentric fusion of traditional and avant-garde sounds, breaking festival time constraints in the same defiant way they broke musical barriers.