A vital, beautiful fusion of spoken/sung poetry from menard (they/them, Atakapa-Ishak Nation of Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas) and music from longtime KZSU favorite Weathers. Menard’s surrealistic and elliptical poems explore “surveillance culture, indigenous resistance, gender identity and the evasive notion of sovereignty.” Weathers’s accompaniment is dense, heavy, bright drone with glittering synths on top. The combination is electrifying, an inspiring call to imagine decolonization, radical political change, and a re-centering of indigenous cultures. The first time I heard this, I pumped my first in the air and nearly jumped up and down in excitement. I so badly want this to get airplay that I made an FCC clean edit of the whole album. All tracks are fabulous, but start with 1 or 3, then move to 2 and 4 when you want to go epic. Just play it.

1. *(4:02)—menard’s poetry with no musical accompaniment. A captivating reading.
2. (22:15)—Thick shimmering drone, deep synth bass, washed-out desert mirage guitar, underwater clinking. Poetry starts at seven minutes, sung by menard and run through auto-tune. Epic melodic finish.
3. *(11:47)—A deep, rumbling synth drone. menard’s poetry spills out, spoken like a deluge. Heavy reverb on the vocals.
4. (27:37)—Slow and distant desert electric guitar for the first six minutes, then gigantic oceantide-like synth drone. menard delivers their poetry in an epic chorus of vocoder voices. A bit like Laurie Anderson’s voice manipulation experiments on her album Homeland, but way more intense. Wow!!!