Photo Credit: Nate Lemuel of Darklisted Photography

The political is the personal is the musical for Katherine Paul who has long made her Native American ancestry central to her artistry – so much so that it’s evident in her music before one even presses play, with album titles like At The Party With My Brown Friends and The Land, The Water, The Sky. The opener to her newest album is the perfect synthesis of these three elements – over driving, almost claustrophobic guitar, bass, and drums, Paul sings of unease and a sense of displacement; of violence being a fact of life and of finding hope despite all this (“Waking up is so violent // I want to see the peaceful light”). In the accompanying black and white music video – shot on the ancestral lands of the Swinomish and Coast Salish – Paul defiantly cries these final lines from a moving car. In the final moments, her anguished face evolves into a smirk – a testament to remaining optimistic in a world that sometimes feels designed to crush people like Paul. 

The Land, The Water, The Sky’s greatest moments are these where Paul finds a sound that is equally as captivating as her words – “Nobody” is a great example of this; a warm, highly melodic love song whose fuzzy guitar solos recall countless shoegaze classics. The same is true for “Sedna” – another driving guitar number, backdropped by the sound of Paul’s drumsticks hitting each other. The lyrics, meanwhile, encourage a full-throttled embrace of living life to the fullest, as she implores, “Look in your eyes // See you’re alive.”

To the extent that The Land has any major shortcomings, it’s that its sonic vision isn’t always as bold as its lyrical one – songs often blur into one another and melodies can feel as though they’ve been copied and pasted from one track to another. The formula of having a song that starts slow and soft only to build up to epic proportions is thrilling at first (“My Blood Runs Through This Land”) but becomes predictable by the time you get to a song like “Understanding.” Paul is credited for writing and composing all these songs and plays most of her own instruments – from drums to guitar to mellotron. But while her skills as a multi-instrumentalist are undoubtedly impressive, one wonders whether recruiting a bigger band would have led to a richer, more diverse sound.

Indeed, some of The Land’s most pleasant surprises arrive when Paul invites in additional voices – where the communal nature of her lyrics is matched in the LP’s sound. On “Salmon Stinta” she invites lo-fi legend Phil Elverum to join in on backing vocals, resulting in some of the album’s most transcendent moments, while on “Spaces,” Paul’s parents, Kevin and Patricia, take on this role. It’s a beautiful combination – Patricia and Kathleen’s similarly entrancing quiet delivery contrasted with the Pow Wow delivery from Kevin, which seeks to further heighten the album’s ancestral identity.

Following “Spaces” is album closer “Don’t Give Up” – an epic mission statement and fully realized testament to Paul’s unique and essential placement within the world of indie-rock. “You wanted a second chance, well you’re alive,” she celebrates in the first verse – an acknowledgment of the fragility of life and the ecstasy of getting to live another day. “I don’t give up,” Paul repeats defiantly as the song builds, proving her triumph over the forces of oppression. Given the eleven songs that precede it, the track’s progression from ballad to epic is unsurprising, but the payoff more than makes up for any sense of predictability. “I was only seventeen // I was only seventy,” she declares in the bridge – broadening her narrative scope to that of a lifetime. The song continues to build as Paul repeats the album title, “the land, the water, the sky” – her voice sounding more impassioned than ever. Sometimes the greatest victory, both political and personal, is complete connectedness with one’s heritage, one’s environment, one’s history, and one’s culture. 

Written by: Tom Williams