To support the continued momentum of his 2023 sophomore release Motewolonuwok, recently shortlisted for the Polaris Music Prize, Jeremy Dutcher offers a behind the scenes look at the making of his latest album.
Jeremy Dutcher’s sophomore LP, Motewolonuwok – his defiant, healing and queer exploration of modern indigeneity – has been shortlisted for the prestigious Polaris Music Prize 2024, alongside Elisapie, Charlotte Cardin, Allison Russell and more. The winner will be announced during the gala in Toronto on September 17.
As a previous winner of the Polaris Music Prize (2018), Jeremy has shared a moving new video to celebrate his nomination and unveil some of the processes behind the astonishing Motewolonuwok.
“There are lessons you’re taught and ones you come to know experientially — some are both,” explains Dutcher. “The lesson is that ‘there is no better medicine than singing together’. Something I was told from a young age but didn’t truly internalize until the process of creating this last album.
“Bringing this album to fruition and insisting on its vision was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done and it was only through the collective support of this amazing group of singers that it came to pass. The WICIW Choir was built from every corner of my life, bringing together the voices I admire most, and is made most beautiful by its inclusivity, truly an ensemble for every voice type. Getting to share some wolastoqey latuwewakon with these dear collaborators was a transformative experience for me; we can learn so much from teaching. From my depth, I give gratitude to each of these singers who gave this record it’s true voice: the spirit of collectivity.”
The WICIW Choir is : James Baley, Meghan Jamieson, Teiya Kasahara, Keith Lam, Jonathan MacArthur, Marion Newman, Lydia Persaud, Alex Samaras, Karen Weigold, Alanna Stuart, Katrina Westin.
Dutcher originally vaulted himself into the upper echelons of Canadian performance with his 2018 debut, Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa. Since winning the Polaris Music Prize and JUNO Award, performing for NPR Tiny Desk, and collaborating with Yo-Yo Ma and Beverly Glenn-Copeland, in 2023 Dutcher returned with Motewolonuwok, a moving and radiant exploration of contemporary Indigeneity and his place within it, presenting his most expansive work yet. The new album also marked Dutcher’s first time writing and singing in English. A powerful invitation for collective healing and understanding.
“Shared tongue is a beautiful gift, with a complicated reason,” Dutcher explains. “These new English songs are also a way of singing directly to the newcomer, or settler, in their own language — a direct line of communication that seeks to platform his community’s stories of healing, resilience, and emergence to all that may hear.”
Motewolonuwok heaves with dynamic orchestration and the inherent drama of grand piano, recalling a long line of artists who have turned the classical establishment on its head to deliver compositions that are doubly ecstatic and modern — luminaries such as Julius Eastman, Perfume Genius, Arthur Russell, Beverly Glenn-Copeland, and Merce Cunningham. More intimate and expansive than anything Dutcher has created before, Motewolonuwok hedges the line between storytelling and composition as both a transcendental protest record and an exploration of self. This is experimental pop as corrective medicine: a defiant, healing, and queer experience that fills any listener with power and wisdom.
