Deborah Martin & Erik Wøllo: Kinishba
Spotted Peccary Music

However well-intentioned, there's always the danger that in fashioning a project designed to honour Native American culture and the Apache people the artist will do the opposite in producing a treatment that's either too surface-level or registers as merely one more unfortunate instance of cultural appropriation. With Kinishba, Deborah Martin and Erik Wøllo show they're guilty of neither misstep. The groundwork for the release was established fifteen years ago in their first collaboration, 2009's Between Worlds. In both cases the two have created material that wholly embodies the subject matter as opposed to presenting it from an external vantage point. Musically, Kinishba brings vividly to life the customs and rituals associated with Native American culture while at the same time infusing the material with ambient-electronic textures and contemporary sound design.

Testifying to the integrity of their approach, Martin and Wøllo dedicated countless hours to background study and communication with different Apache tribal members, specifically Edgar Perry, Prince George, Leno Edwards, Alfredo Way, and Red Eagle (brief bios of the five appear in the handsome twenty-four-page booklet included with the release). They also contribute musically, with Prince George credited with Navajo Cedar flute on “Heart of the Warrior,” Red Eagle mouth bow on “Natures Paths,” Edwards and Way Apache drums on “Burial Ground,” and Perry Apache narration and snake, coyote, crow, and owl sounds on “Voices of Nature,” to cite four examples. In the album's ten pieces, chants and drumming help make a direct connection to the Apache world, as do field recordings of insects, bees, meadowlarks, and site locations. For their part, Martin and Wøllo contribute synthesizers, vocals, wood flute, ocarina, and a host of percussion instruments, from rainstick and goatskin shakers to turtle rattle and Taos drum loops.

Consistent with its title, “Burial Ground” reverentially honours those who've gone before, something intimated by Martin's vocal utterance, “Here I am … Here I stay.”Alongside ambient whooshes and rattlings, pounding drums and the chanting voices of Edwards, Way, and Perry emerge, the disparate parts woven into a spellbinding tapestry of ancient and modern sounds. Crickets surface amidst an enveloping swirl of vocals and synthesizer atmospheres in the title track, Kinishba referring to the remains of an ancient Mogollon Pueblo village located on White Mountain Apache Tribal lands. The sounds of other animal creatures permeate “Voices of Nature” to emphasize the importance with which all life-forms are regarded, not just the human. “Fort Apache Meadowlarks” separates itself from the other tracks in giving prominent roles to Wøllo's plangent electric guitar playing and shimmering keyboard figures. Many a piece is animated by thrusting drum patterns and vocal chants, “Heart of the Warrior,”“Prayer Song,” and “Mountain Spirit” prime examples. The tracks unfold as lush, detail-intensive incantations through which ceremonial voices, electronic elements, and percussion details dizzyingly swirl.

With Kinishba, Martin and Wøllo have created a recording that's both respectful of the Apache people and their culture and features music of sincerity and authenticity. In Wøllo's words, “The importance of actually immersing in the culture and getting to know it from the inside is crucial.” For those coming to Native American culture from without, their recording offers an insightful, valuable, and musically enticing portal into this special and singular realm.

March 2024