Mali Obomsawin
PROJECTS:
QUARTET
Mali Obomsawin is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist and a citizen of Odanak First Nation (W8banaki). She is a bassist, composer, improviser and vocalist whose work spans from jazz and roots music to film scoring, teaching, and shoegaze.
Mali is currently touring with her band Deerlady, now supporting their latest release “Greatest Hits” (2024); the free-jazz band she leads under her own name, and the Julia Keefe Indigenous Big Band. Mali’s score on the highly anticipated documentary Sugarcane (Nat Geo) directed by Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie and premiered worldwide in August 2024.
Over the years Mali has been lucky to work with notable musicians including Esperanza Spalding, Taylor Ho Bynum, Dave Holland, Angelica Sanchez, Kris Davis, Billy Hart, Peter Apfelbaum, Craig Harris, Bill Cole, Althea Sully-Cole, Tomas Fujiwara, Mike Formanek, and more.
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 is currently touring Greatest Hits throughout 2024.
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
