Mali Obomsawin
PROJECTS:
XTET
Mali Obomsawin is a bassist, vocalist, songwriter and composer. She is a citizen of Odanak First Nation. Her current touring projects include her eponymous experimental ensemble, the rock band Deerlady, and her new collaboration with Raven Chacon, LazyHorse. She also performs regularly in the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band.
Since her solo debut Sweet Tooth in 2022, which NPR’s Larry Blumenfeld called “the most auspicious album I heard all year,” Mali Obomsawin’s prismatic rise has kept a brisk pace. An artist of prolific output, her music was featured on the FX series Reservation Dogs in 2023, her original score for the documentary Sugarcane brought her to the Oscars in 2024, and her myriad projects have taken her to premier stages across the US and Canada. Her two primary projects, Deerlady and Mali Obomsawin XTET, are both poised to release new material in 2026.
DEERLADY
Performing as the shoegaze duo Deerlady, Mali Obomsawin and Magdalena Abrego are two improvising artists bonded in the language of experimentation. Their debut album Greatest Hits is a journey through songs penned by Obomsawin that explore decay and delicate moments – cradled by Abrego’s worldbuilding and evocative guitar playing. The band’s first single “There, There” premiered on the hit FX series Reservation Dogs in 2023, and the album, released the following January, has quickly won over audiences across Indian Country and the US. Described by NPR’s Lars Gotrich as a “headbang while you weep” experience, Deerlady looks forward to the release of a new music in 2026.
SUGARCANE
Bassist, vocalist, and composer Mali Obomsawin’s music has been featured in the hit FX series Reservation Dogs and she composed the score to the Academy Award nominated Nat Geo documentary, Sugarcane. In the 2024 film, an investigation into abuse and missing children at an Indian residential school ignites a reckoning on the nearby Sugarcane Reserve. A stunning tribute to the resilience of Native people and their way of life, Sugarcane, the debut feature documentary from Julian Brave NoiseCat and Emily Kassie, is an epic cinematic portrait of a community during a moment of international reckoning and illuminates the beauty of a community breaking cycles of intergenerational trauma and finding the strength to persevere. In this program, Mali and her band perform live with the backdrop of the film. The documentary is streaming on Disney+ and Hulu and the soundtrack was released in late 2024 on Nat Geo’s Hollywood Records.
PRESS:
“Obomsawin reminds listeners constantly that folk music shouldn’t be about pliant, pretty subservience, and that Abenaki culture is loudly, proudly living and expanding.”
The Guardian
“The most auspicious album I heard this year”
Larry Blumenfeld, NPR
“A breath of fresh air…It not only works as a potent commentary on Indigenous heritage, autonomy and experiences, but as gripping, dynamic, and thunderous music in and of itself. All that without an ounce of overshowing.”
JazzTimes
“Obomsawin aims to shine a light on the largely hidden history of Indigenous jazz”
WNYC
“One of those albums that utterly defy expectation or convention - it occupies its own universe, arriving from leftfield to blow your mind.”
Folk Radio UK
