Watin by Aysanabee

Aysanabee’s search for the opposite states of uncertainty, loss and pain bring a sense of reassembly in real time with his debut album, Watin. The album is a work of renewal, gathering the fragments of language, family and memory as an immense and intimate work of rebuilding. With two songs released over the summer serving as a thrilling preview, Aysanabee’s Watin is an emphatic artistic statement, more than the sum of its individually powerful parts. Watin is a whole, a highly personal concept album that tells its story as overlapping chapters, with two important narrators.

The album opens with one of nine Interludes, which place the voice of Aysanabee’s grandfather, album namesake Watin, in intimate conversation with the songs that surround the precious audio recordings. These Interludes ground and magnify the themes of the collection, where the small details that punctuate Watin’s childhood memories are the sparks that kindle each song’s blaze. Aysanabee’s hypnotic finger-picking is the rhythmic foundation of the collection, showcased on “Bringing The Fire” and standout “Ego Death,” which follows the final Interlude, in which Watin moves between two languages, bridging the gulf between the worlds Aysanabee seeks to make whole.

From making history as the first Indigenous artist to reach #1 on Canadian Alt-Rock Charts to winning two JUNO awards, Aysanabee has travelled an impressive distance from an unsigned artist to an internationally touring breakout. In just over a year, he released his debut album, Watin, and his recent EP, Here and Now.

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