Alanis Obomsawin-Bush Lady (2018 Remastered CD)
 

Bush Lady is the somewhat secret only album release from Canadian singer-songwriter-filmmaker Alanis Obomsawin. Originally released in 1988, the album was remastered and released in 2018 in the midst of the Canadian government's attempt at Truth and Reconciliation with its history of colonialism.

The album is personal, spiritual, political, and historical all at once. It is a document of her experiences in Canada as a member of the Waban-Aki Nation and of experiences directly relating to policy implementations by the Canadian government throughout the course of colonization. The songs are written and sang in Waban-Aki, English, as well as French, a decision that speaks to her own being-in-her-world as well as symbolizes the complicated mess that characterizes Canadian identity (at the individual and national level).

The liner notes are also written like this and contain a mini biography of the artist as well as pieces of the 1878 Indian Act (an important moment in the history of colonization).

The music itself continues this theme of tragically jumbled influences as it includes elements that are specifically Waban-Aki in tradition but accompanied by distinctly western musical cues, timbres, and instruments. The first piece, "Odana", is an excellent example of this. It begins with a string section playing a hypnotic and somewhat oddly constructed theme that loosely follows the rhythm of the singing. The two parts to Bush Lady feature traditional drumming of the Waban-Aki people accompanied again by strings that are distinctly western in nature. The album also uses silence as a main musical element for moments when storytelling is the main focus.

This recording is significant for its previously mentioned cultural and historical significance but also for its musical innovations which are fascinating and which have the potential to fall flat due to the gravity of their own symbolic meaning. Though haunting and slightly eerie in mood, one never gets the impression that these musicians (like the people and historical moments they represent) are reluctantly bound together. And the political nature of the recording never sounds bitter, just interested in truth-telling as a cultural act and as an act of healing.


https://www.cbc.ca/radio/q/thursday-...lady-1.4839370
https://www.musicworks.ca/reviews/re...awin-bush-lady