Global Music Column – May

Joe Rainey – Niineta

The drum is central to powwow music. Singers beat in unison on its skin as their voices overlap with vibrato-laden syllabic sounds. No specific language is sung; instead powwow music is a spiritual communication that has anchored Indigenous American inter-tribal gatherings for over a century. On his debut album, Niineta, powwow singer Joe Rainey does without the drum circle and instead foregrounds layers of his own voice, assisted by producer Andrew Broder: the pair met at Bon Iver’s Eaux Claires music festival and subsequently became a part of his 37d03d collective.

Read the review in the Guardian.

[This piece was published on 22/04/22]