Zoongide'ewin (Zoon) continues to share from his critically acclaimed and internationally celebrated debut album, Bleached Wavves, released on Paper Bag Records in June of 2020.
The record has been praised by Brooklyn Vegan, Talkhouse, Paste, Magnet, Exclaim, American Songwriter, Under The Radar, The Fader and elicited a 9/10 album review from Exclaim Magazine who noted, "Zoon's debut album is nothing short of remarkable" and "it also blazes new trails in shoegaze, particularly in the way it implements sounds from traditional First Nations music, an inventive mixture Daniel Monkman cheekily calls "moccasin-gaze."
Bleached Wavves spent 7 weeks at #1 on Canada's Earshot Chart last summer. It was recently heralded as #4 record on The National Top 200 Albums of 2020 Earshot published last month. The only debut album in the top 10. Bleached Wavves also landed on 'Best Of 2020 lists at Apple Music, Exclaim, CBCMusic, Dominionated and eTalk claimed Zoon as a 'Breakout Canadian Artist You Need to Know About'Indie Machine noted Zoon's "Brokenhead" as the best song of 2020, the same track Zoon recently performed for Indie88's 'Live From Home' series.
Today, Zoon reveals the new video for Bleached Wavves track "Was & Always Will Be" incidentally, one of the last tracks Daniel brought to the record. "In our Ojibway tradition and something my mom taught me is that when the Creator has been good to you or has blessed your life you should always honour that," notes Daniel. "Ways to do that are helping others in need or being mindful in your everyday life or in living the 'good life'. For 'Was & Always Will Be' I wanted to show that gratitude so I chant 'Yahweh' throughout the song, which is an indigenous word for 'creator'. The first traditional song I learned as a child had the chant 'Yaaahweh Yaaahweh, Yahweh ho' and that rhythm followed me everywhere I went and undoubtedly transferred into my music as an adult. Whether you believe in a Creator or not it's hard to miss the beautiful things that happen in life so it's always good practice to show gratitude."
Zoon had a vision of incorporating a sense of flight to the video something director John Smith also intuited in the video treatment."I was experimenting with different visuals to represent this song, then Daniel came to the table with this great drone footage that his friend had shot -- I really just ran with that," says John. "I was able to dig a bit more into the traditional 'psychedelic' style of editing and colour palettes that I think you can only get away with when you pair it with a wonderfully hypnotic song such as this one. If you ever wondered what it might feel like to have a helicopter-esque outer body experience in 1978, this is probably the music video for you."
WATCH "Was & Always Will Be" HERE
Zoon was interviewed in CBC Radio 1's national, cultural morning show 'q' with Tom Power in 2020 and you can listen to the captivating interview in full here HERE. "My whole thing is, I just want people to find a place where they can express themselves because when you start doing that it's a do-it-yourself therapy," says Daniel in the conversation. "Even just writing down your lyrics or what happened during the day. When you start to do that, you become self aware. And when you become self aware it opens you up to a lot of different opportunities, like self love." Daniel further expands on his personal and musical journeys and shares tracks from Bleached Wavves. "It's a pretty amazing record, Daniel" says CBC 'q' host Tom Power "I don't know what I was expecting when I put it on, but I was kind of blown away by it."
On Bleached Wavves Zoon paints a message of hope and fortitude, lessons he learned studying the Seven Grandfather teachings after experiencing the lowest point of his life and channeling it all through the shoegaze filter with nods of inspiration to one of his favourite and formative bands, My Bloody Valentine. The creation of the LP was a testament to Daniel's ability to reverse engineer with minimal gear (his guitar and a digital delay pedal) and recording at his home the intricate sounds and layers of music texture he heard in his head. He was sometimes forced to wait days or weeks to return to working on songs, this patience and reality of 'waiting' currently something the entire world is similarly and collectively experiencing right now. All artwork for the record is by Danielle Roberts.
