"They want 2000s Buffy Marie / They want my status, but they're getting my teeth," Tashiina Buswa intones, talk-singing so deadpan you can practically hear her rolling her eyes. This happens within the first minute of "Off Rez," the third track from Ribbon Skirt's debut album Bite Down, a post-punk record honouring the Anishinaabe experience.Unsurprisingly, the genre is the perfect vehicle for all that seethes beneath the already-fraught surface of being Indigenous. Buffy Sainte-Marie — who was recently stripped of her Order of Canada, JUNO awards and Polaris Music Prizes after the 2023 CBC investigation into her ancestry — is perhaps likewise an expected citation, the singer-songwriter and activist's fall from being an idealistic model of Indigeneity speaking to the way everything we feel made to conform to is, in fact, made up.Like many of us born on this stolen land, I have an embodied understanding of a nervous system steadfast in its dedication to fight, flight, freeze or fawn, despite having grown up unaware of my own Indigenous ancestry and incredibly far-removed from the culture of the community to which I am connected by blood. The Sainte-Marie news cycle sits on my chest, endlessly looping the question of whether it's all more helpful or harmful in the end.Conversely, the stakes of much of the post-punk I have loved have undeniably been more about fun snark and insistent rhythms; the Wet Leg of it all, if you will. For Ribbon Skirt, there is such a massive wealth of depth underneath the motorik grooves and dark, needly guitar tones of incredibly catchy songs like "Cut" and "Look What You Did" — but the exuberance of the expression isn't lost in the heft of its weight. The single "Wrong Planet" is a frenetic, high-speed chase that addresses the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) crisis, Buswa erupting in an ear-splitting scream before the outro drowns in distortion. Another pre-release track, "Cellophane," takes an even more ominous approach, with remnants of traditional Anishinaabe music breathing heavy, reinforcing the bassline's steady heartbeat amid swirls of squelching synths.Even if they "only" had tongue-in-cheek lyrics about a chaise longue, the Montreal-based band would still have achieved their goal of turning their pain into something "regenerative and enriching for future generations" with Bite Down, an awe-inspiring gift guaranteed to make every hair on the back of your neck stand at attention. Miigwech, Ribbon Skirt.
Wavelength
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