Mali Obomsawin reveals plans for new album, Automatic

The album follows Obomsawin's 2022 debut Sweet Tooth, and emerged out of a "disorienting and emotional journey" following a period of critical attention and extensive touring. During the rollout of her first album, Obomsawin received hours of mid-1900s ethnological recordings of the Abenaki language previously held at Dartmouth College. Though she'd referenced some of these recordings on her debut, having access to them ultimately changed her process. "Behind Automatic is a deep awareness about institutions' predatory relationship with Native material," says Obomsawin. "I wanted to make a record that institutions couldn't own." Lead single "Automatic" pairs Obomsawin's voice with archival recordings of her great-grand relative named Malian, which she worked with turntablist Andrew Broder to process. "The turntable is an instrument that explores time and temporality and is able to give a form of agency to the ancestors in the recordings," she explains. The album features collaborators including cornetist Taylor Ho Bynum, brothers Zack and Adam O'Farrill, and guitarist Magdalena Abregom, with the songs examining war and Indigenous identity through the voices of the Odanak people them...