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Indigenous Music Without Borders, Volume 2

April 16, 2014

Thelma Plum

Aboriginal Music Week is proud to announce the release of Indigenous Music Without Borders, Volume 2. The mixtape, available on SoundCloud, features nine recordings by exceptional songwriters and poets from Canada, the US, and Australia.

Aboriginal Music Week launched the Indigenous Music Without Borders mixtape series on March 7, 2014 to share some of the great music being made by Indigenous folks around the world, in almost every genre.

Volume 2 begins with "For the Miner" by Chocktaw singer-songwriter Samantha Crain and "King" by 18-year-old Australian Thelma Plum. Shane Koyczan's "To This Day" might be the most remarkable of the selections, but Jay Gilday's live recording of "Morning Comes," Leonard Sumner's "The One," and Brendt Thomas Diabo's "Front Lights" are also outstanding. "John Carver" by the prolific Skeena Reece, "Surrender" from George Leach's JUNO Award winning album, and "Forever" by poet Janet Marie Rogers round out the compilation.

The fist mixtape featured songs by Lido Pimienta, astronomar, Kinnie Starr, Las Cafeteras, Clap Freckles, P-80, World Hood, and Exquisite Ghost.

Submissions for future mixtapes:
Email alan@ammb.ca if you have some music on SoundCloud that you want us to consider for one of our upcoming mixtapes.

Samantha Crain (FacebookWebsite)
Samantha Crain is a talented songwriter from the Choctaw Nation. Kid Face, Crain's third full-length album (Ramseur Records, February 19, 2013), is a revelatory song cycle as expansive as the wide-open spaces of the 26-year-old artist’s native Oklahoma, and as intimate as a conspiratorial whisper. Recorded and mixed in just eight days in the San Francisco studio of producer John Vanderslice (the Mountain Goats, Spoon), this wildly original album stands as the definitive statement thus far from an uncommonly insightful, fearlessly honest young singer-songwriter.

Thelma Plum (Facebook | SoundCloud)
Thelma Plum is an 18-year-old Aboriginal songwriter from Brisbane, Australia. Plum has opened national tours in Australia for Bob Evans and Emma Louise. She recently started on the festival circuit and has slots at Bleach*, St. Kilda, Woodford Folk Festivals, and Bluesfest under her belt. Plum's home-made demo of "Father Said" earned her a Triple J Unearthed title in 2012, which came with trip to Darwin for a live performance at the National Indigenous Music Awards.

Shane Koyczan (Facebook | Website)
Shane Koyczan is an award winning Canadian poet, author, and performer. The world took notice of Koyczan when his influential, anti-bullying, "To This Day Project" video went viral in early 2013 with 10 million views and counting.

Jay Gilday (Facebook | SoundCloud)
Jay Gilday hails from Yellowknife in the Northwest Territories and is the son of a Dene mother and an Irish Canadian father. Gilday's live performance is executed with a trained voice and a passion to drive it backed up by a heavy hitting guitar, finger-style or flat-picked. He released an album entitled All That I Can Give in 2010.

Leonard Sumner (Facebook | SoundCloud | Website)
Leonard Sumner is an Anishinaabe emcee and singer-songwriter from the Little Saskatchewan First Nation located in the middle of Manitoba. He provides perspective from a voice often unheard and over-looked in the traditional music communities: truthful, insightful, and providing a new sound straight from ‘the Rez’. His music is best described as a fusion of hip hop, country and R&B.

Brendt Thomas Diabo (SoundCloud)
Brendt Thomas Diabo was born and raised on the Mohawk Reserve of Kahnawake, just outside of Montreal. Diabo has released two EPs and has been touring in Quebec, Ontario, and New York. His music is old time country infused with rockabilly and blues.

Skeena Reece
Skeena Reece is from the Tsimshian Territory and has been working in the arts since 1996. She is of Métis/Cree and Tsimshian/Gitksan descent.

George Leach (Facebook | SoundCloud | Website)
George Leach is a JUNO Award winning blues and rock recording artist from the Stl'atl'imx Nation. He quickly became a fan favourite after the release of his debut album Just Where I'm At in 2000. His follow up album, Surrender, is the result of 13 years of living, learning, trial, error, falling and getting up, winning and losing, breaking up, making up, and writing through it all. The album’s 11 tracks offer ample proof that the time was well spent.

Janet Marie Rogers (SoundCloud)
A published and award-winning poet, Janet Marie Rogers has worked and studied in the genres of poetry, short fiction, spoken word performance poetry, video poetry and recorded poems with music and scriptwriting. On January 19, 2012, Rogers became The City of Victoria's Poet Laureate, which is a three year term. Rogers is a Mohawk artist from Six Nations and also hosts Native Waves Radio on CFUV 101.9fm in Victoria and Tribal Clefs every Tuesday on CBC Radio One. 

Indigenous Music Without Borders mixtape

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