Sultans Of String 2023
To celebrate their two decades on the scene, Torontonian ensemble serve up a record of utmost importance and immense beauty.
Walking Through The Fire
Cynics can say this record was born out of necessity, as a result of Calls to Action by Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada prompting Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists to work together to forge a path forward, to a better future. However, the collective which, after twenty years in show business, should be considered a national treasure find such necessity – dictated by creative impetus and moral obligations, rather than state acts – in their very souls. While seasonal entertainment the collective know how to deliver is essential too, their previous project “Refuge / Sanctuary” – a collaboration with recent immigrants to their and neighboring country – highlighted the band’s more serious side, and its follow-up takes the same idea further. Or deeper, as the latter-day discoveries of tragic history of residential schools revealed the still-existing rift between the people who originally lived in North America and those who came later.
Here’s why “Walking Through The Fire” may become a musical analog to territory acknowledgements that accompany public ceremonies in the Land of Maple Leaf: it’s the most sincere, though quite uneven, paean to Canadian life where singers and players representing First Nations, Inuit and Métis offer their insights of what’s going on there. There’s no grittier, yet romantic, reality check than on “The Rez” from Crystal Shawanda who’s always been vocal about her roots and whose vigorous voice is sympathetically supported by Chris McKhool’s violin licks and Kevin Laliberté’s guitar riffs which, giving a country air to this dance-inducing piece, feel cinematically ethereal on opener “A Beautiful Darkness” to inject Marc Meriläinen’s throaty lines with throbbing urgency of orchestral scope. On the other hand, THE NORTH SOUND’s “Sweet Alberta” seems too lighthearted in both sentiment and performance and too close to a certain John Denver evergreen for SULTANS OF STRING to fully invest themselves in the track’s Cajunesque pop – as opposed to Raven Kanatakta’s slide-fueled “Take Off the Crown” and Shannon Thunderbird and Kate Dickson’s “Lost And Found”: two fury-filled, if different, cuts – one insistent and to-the-point, the other meditative and to-the-skies.
But “Kǫ́” that’s warbled by Leela Gilday in Dene and “Black Winged Raven” intoned by Ms Thunderbird in Tsimshian marry folk sensibility to impressive soundscapes, vibrant and groovy – albeit not as belligerent as NORTHERN CREE’s powwow dance “Nîmihito” to which Drew Birston’s bass passages add fire, and not as elegiac, nigh on symphonic, as “Our Mother The Earth” in which Dr. Duke Redbird’s spoken poem is grounded so wondrously or “Highway Of Tears” that Don Ross and M.J. Dandeneau’s twang and rumble render atmospheric. Just as elegant, “Humma” and “Quviasuliqpunga” feature Kendra Tagoona and Tracy Sarazin’s guttural singing and chanting, yet MÉTIS FIDDLER QUARTET, who unfold the misty balladry of “Chanson de Riel” in French, leave words at the doors of “Tkaronto Reel” to party with SULTANS like there’s no tomorrow. Of course, with melodic melting pots like this tomorrow – the aforementioned better future – must come soon.
*****
