i step over
watery edges
he pulls the canoe
across the ice
she paddles to the edge to collect candles
for her old ones to melt and then drink
you shoot ducks
while it’s still easy.
they gather at the edge
thinking
they gather in the sky
rethinking
they swim towards light
thinking otherwise
sun hits you from above
you melt from the inside out
faint ice as membrane
spreads sound across skin
aabawe the first warmth of spring
aabawe a loosening of the mind
to forgive
we gathered
in the winter lodge
formed from earth
and ice
we slowed
prayed
sang
dreamt
earth below
world above
waiting things out
but together
the upper parts
are exiled to the bottom
the lower parts
deported to the surface
there is euphotic rising
and falling
orbits of dispossession
and reattachment
achieving
maximum density:
39 degrees farenheit
you relax
at the surface
spread apart
cooler holding warmer
regular
repeated
ordered
locked
lake as one mind
i saved fallen snow
on my backbone
i saved fallen snow
from the front row
forsaking tomorrow
slow burning today
the sky is falling up
i saved shards of hope
in my sky blue coat
i saved drops of light
you paved paradise
i saved your mistakes
etched them into my skin
the sky is falling up
i sang like thunder
spilled anger like fire
the sky is falling up
please don’t mourn me
skin departing bone
ice abandons snow
my skin’s departing bone
pain instead of snow
a choir is spilling
the morning sun
the sky is falling up
archiving blindness
in meticulous ways
the sky is falling up
sweating bits of time
leaking pools of kind
dissolving bits of spine
drowning in sublime
skin departing bone
ice abandons snow
my skin’s departing bone
you never saw me
and i never called out
the sky is falling up
foiled by indifference
melted by greed
please don’t mourn for me
please don’t mourn me
calling out
calling in
you’re not fooling me
tethered to the kinship
of disassociated
zeros and ones
shining your crown
of neoliberal
likes
yelling the loudest
in the
empty room
gathering
followers
like berries
feeding
fish
to insecurity
sliding
into
reckless moment
after reckless moment
we witness:
too many holes in your hide
the broken skin of a canoe
the tightening of a mind
tracks, leading nowhere
at the
beach
we build a fire
sit in our
own
silence
peel off
blue
light
lie back
on
frozen
waves
breath
in
sharp air
warm
into
each other
careful moment
after careful moment
and the road only goes one way
and you can't get lost
the trees drive by
and we carry the river
i ask you four questions
you give me
four answers:
the ininiwish that live here
the book that changed your life
and the river only goes one way
and you can't get lost
the akiwenzii that assigned you
the oil rig, it sang Marx
we keep the critic in the back seat
i keep the answers
in the hollow part of me
and the river only goes one way
and you can't get lost
there are simple stolen moments
these are simple stolen moments
and we love when we are able
and there are beating wings reminding me if you fly
forever you can have two summers
and the river only goes one way
and you can't get lost
the frozen sighed
and gave up
the lake wrote
their letter of resignation
july 15
30 cubic meters
just like
the Gwich’in always said
i bring you coffee
a blanket
moonlight
i bring you stitches
a feather
three books
the caribou
sit
measuring emptiness
the fish
study
giving up
the molecules
calculate
the effects of hate
you breakdown
to a less
ordered state
july 15
30 cubic meters
just like the Gwich’in always said
the ice breathes
and gives in
the lake runs
out of option
the ice breaths
and there are
all kinds
of ways
to fail
i bring you coffee
a blanket
moonlight
i bring you stitches
a feather
three books
i bring you coffee
a blanket
moonlight
i bring you stitches
a feather
three books
hello my friend I’ve come
to see you again
everything we tried to grow
this year has died
you’ve tripped
inside my head
numb calm,
dulled light,
cold red
wearing just the lake
diminished in the wake
inside a commune of night
there’s no way to make this right
acorns and fallen stars
a child that wasn’t ours
ashes in my eyes
crushed fires
and shattered skies
injured certified
i wish i’d held you when you died
you’ve tripped
inside my head
numb calm,
dulled light,
cold red
acorns and fallen stars
a child that wasn’t ours
ashes in my eyes
crushed fires
everything we tried to grow
this year has died
ashes in my eyes crushed fires
and shattered skies
in a basement full of plastic flowers
pierogis
cabbage rolls
at the head of the lake
thinking under accusation
at the mouth of the catastrophic river
disappearing our kids
at the foot of the nest
beside trailer hitches, coffee, spoons
we made a circle
and it helped
the smoke did the things
we couldn’t
singing
broke open hearts
i hold your hand
without touching it
we’re in the thinking part of the lake
faith under accusation
at the mouth of the river
and the specter of free
at the foot of Animikig
beside bones of stone and red silver
in a basement full of increasing entropy
moose ribs, wild rice
in realization
we don’t exist without each other
she says: there’s nothing about you
i’m not willing to know
about
Theory of Ice is a powerful act of world-building and creative sovereignty by Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg writer, scholar, and musician Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.
One of the most compelling and important Indigenous voices of her generation, Leanne is the renowned author of Noopiming: The Cure for White Ladies (named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail); This Accident of Being Lost (winner of the MacEwan University Book of the Year; finalist for the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize and the Trillium Book Award; named a best book of the year by the Globe and Mail, the National Post, and Quill & Quire); As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance (awarded Best Subsequent Book by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association); and the creator of the album f(l)light which combined complex poetry and multi-layered stories of the land, spirit, and body with lush electronic/acoustic arrangements. This new album, Theory Of Ice is the result of an ongoing practice in the poetics and aesthetics of musical relationship, the material originating in written poetry, and worked into surprising, richly organic, song-forms through a collaborative generative process with bandmates Ansley Simpson and Nick Ferrio, producer Jonas Bonetta (Evening Hymns), and producer Jim Bryson.
“I step over watery edges…” The opening line of the album’s first track “Break Up” welcomes you into a world likely not encountered or immediately recognized by the majority of the North American settler population. Imagery circles in fragments, as water moves between forms: ice, liquid, air. We are at the intersection of states, the intersection of ways of understanding, of ways of describing, contemporary science mixing with Nishnaabeg intellectual practices. The language is precise, and surprising in its precision: “there is euphotic rising and falling / orbits of dispossession and reattachment // achieving maximum density: 39 degrees farenheit.” (Disorientation is okay. I too had to look up “euphotic”: “..of, relating to, or constituting the upper layers of a body of water into which sufficient light penetrates to permit growth of green plants” according to Merriam-Webster). Poetry often leans on metaphor for its effect, for its shocks: metaphor as an assertion of likeness, of something shared, it shocks with the newness and unexpectedness of the comparison. This type of language works because a fundamental unlikeness between the objects of the metaphor is understood, and so the distinction between objects is ultimately confirmed. The language here shocks in a different way. This language reveals relationship, embedded Nishnaabemowin appearing as both definition and poetry, a revelation of a way of thinking: “aabawe: the first warmth of spring / aabawe: a loosening of the mind / to forgive.” I hear this as a generous invitation, a reinvention of understanding, the chorus rising beautifully on a melody of “gathering” of “swimming towards light”, “thinking”, “rethinking”, and “thinking otherwise.”
Life is lived within water, we are made of water, we need clean water to live, and water exists in different states: ice, liquid, air, snow. Given a particular set of circumstances (for example where capitalism or settler-colonialism obliterates meaning, connection, and bodies) you might wish to live somewhere solid. You might want to live where you can be held, and where your hope can be held fast. In Noopiming: The Cure For White Ladies, the narrator speaks from within a frozen lake, where “there is solace in being cut off”, and “there is freedom enmeshed within that state”, asserting “being frozen in the lake is another kind of life.” Many of the songs of Theory Of Ice appear as poems in Noopiming. The album and the novel are related but distinct works, two parts of a greater project of thinking, of describing the world, of affirming a Michi Saagig Nishnaabeg existence through story and song and art. I believe “OK Indicts” is sung from this place of holding, from within this ice: “I saved shards of hope”; “I saved drops of light”. A song is a beautiful place to hold a thought, to honour a life.
Viscosity, the property, is a measure of a fluid’s internal resistance, its internal friction. “Viscosity”, the song, rides a thick groove, a reckless darkness of thick bass and drums, as it ruthlessly dissects a contemporary world that celebrates connectivity over connection, taking hard measure of the inherent friction and alienation in our social-mediated society: this “yelling the loudest in the empty room”; this “feeding fish to insecurities.” And then, after an unexpected, disrupting piano solo, rising and falling, another voice enters, and the song rises, less alone, removing itself from that world of digital violence, peeling off from the “blue light.” A remarkable change is enacted and described: building a fire, alert to the coldness of the world, and the warmth of each other, in relationship, “careful moment after careful moment.” The careful, articulate delivery of the poetry, the communal act of playing music, of singing together, of listening to each other, of trusting in each other in the creation and generation of the song – this offers a model of how worlds are generated.
“Surface Tension” arrives in a hush, Leanne dueting with John K Samson (of The Weakerthans), her friend, peer, and, through his work with Arbeiter Ring, sometimes publisher. It’s a quiet, beautiful celebration of the “simple stolen moments” and our ability “to love when we are able.” I hear the song as a gift, making those moments feel more possible, more present.
The continuity of Indigenous resistance, rebellion, and truth is reaffirmed with a powerful new arrangement by Leanne and her band of Willie Dunn’s “I Pity The Country.” Most widely known as the first track on the essential Native North America Vol 1. (Light In The Attic, 2014) compilation, the song’s ongoing relevance and resonance is a powerful indictment of the continuation and persistence of settler colonial violence in North America. The presentation here is completely contemporary and rattling in the caverns of history. It is a song filled to the highest edge with sublimated rage and a profoundly caring humanity in every word: the settler colonial state is not hated, it is pitied, for its smallness, its evil, its perpetual cruelty. I have heard this song sung at protests and marches, against the illegal occupation of unceded lands, in support of water and land protectors, by beautiful voices rallied together, united in a hope for restoration and justice. I heard Leanne and Ansley and Nick sing this song at Native North American gathering in Ottawa, in a room filled with Willie Dunn’s family and his peers, Willie Thrasher, Eric Landry, Willie Mitchell, the great poet Duke Redbird, the film-maker, musician, and force of nature Alanis Obomsawin. Immediately before Leanne’s performance news reached the auditorium that Saskatchewan farmer Gerald Stanley was acquitted by an all-white jury in the murder of Colton Boushie, the 22 year old man from Cree Red Pheasant First Nation. Screaming. Crying. Terrible silence. This is the only song I know that can hold this feeling. It’s the only song I know that’s big enough. I pity this country.
The experience of art is a powerful way of knowing, of learning; it is a gift from the world to the listener. It is an action and a way of being for the maker, it is a relationship with the world. I am thankful for the generosity of the worlds here, the life here. Life goes on in the details, and death too, a part of life. The world is amassed with details. The poet records those details as precisely as she can, singing of blankets, books, plastic flowers, pierogis, and cabbage rolls; singing of the disappearance of kids, of trailer hitches, coffee, spoons. While we were finalizing the master for the album, Leanne was definitive that it was not organized in a linear, narrative manner. It works laterally, non-hierarchically. It works musically. Yet, “Head Of The Lake” offers something like a conclusion. In the face of tragedy and in resistance to ongoing colonial violence, relationship is affirmed: “We made a circle and it helped.”; “Singing broke open hearts.” Here are Ansley and Nick, singing together, singing with Leanne, a moment of surprising beauty, understanding, and peace, and something like a conclusion, however provisional, partial, but also something like an acknowledgement of love: “in realization / we don’t exist without each other / she says: there’s nothing about you / I’m not willing to know.”
– Steven Lambke
credits
released March 12, 2021
leanne betasamosake simpson - singing and speaking
ansley simpson - acoustic guitar, singing, electric guitar
nick ferrio - acoustic, electric, & 12 string guitars, bass, synth, keyboards, singing
tanner pare - drums, percussion
jim bryson - acoustic guitar, electric guitar, vocals, synth
john k. samson - vocals
jonas bonnetta - keyboards, synths, percussion, bass, singing
music written by nick ferrio, jonas bonnetta, ansley simpson and jim bryson
i pity the country written by willie dunn
engineered by heather kirby & jonas bonnetta
additional engineering by jim bryson, nick ferrio, & john k. samson
mixed by gavin gardiner
mastered by heather kirby
produced by jonas bonnetta
additional production by jim bryson
recorded at port william sound in mountain grove, ontario, with additional recording at fixed hinge in stittsville, ontario
album art by nadia myre
design by paul henderson
“thinking rethinking, thinking otherwise” is from kodwo eshun
“hello my friend, i’ve come to see you again”, is from gord downie
miigwech to steve daniels, minowe, nishna, komii, dianne, barry, manon, frankie, caylie, gem, steven lambke, simone schmidt, cris derksen, james bunton, nadia myre, morgan tsetta, lisa jackson, amanda strong, lea marin, and sandra brewster.
chi’miigwech to the family of willie dunn for their permissions and support.
this project was supported by the canada council for the arts.
A collection of tracks from the singer and multi-disciplinary artist's 111 collaboration series, featuring KMRU, Laraaji, and others. Bandcamp New & Notable Apr 25, 2024