Back in April, Daniel Monkman’s Zoon project released its second album, the excellent Bekka Ma’iingan, which saw Monkman refining and expanding their sonic palette to fantastic results. You may not be aware, but as a bridge between 2020 debut Bleached Wavves and its successor, Monkman released a pair of EPs last year; one solo, and one collaborative. It’s a song from the latter that’s getting a deserved remix from artist and producer Yonatan Gat.
This rework of ‘Astun’ plays things relatively straight as far as the remix aspect goes, cleaving closer to an alternate or single version than anything particularly tweaked or deconstructed. Leaning into the heavy atmosphere of the parent material, it sounds like it’s constantly on the verge of disintegrating and almost does so at one point, held together by the choppy waves of Monkman and collaborator Leanne Betasamosake Simpson‘s voices. Here’s Monkman on the remix:
“I had the privilege of connecting with Yonatan and the Stone Tapes crew over the last few years, getting together with other indigenous artists has been a dream of mine, I’m truly grateful for the work that Stone Tapes has done to lift up indigenous voices. Yonatan is a force, and when he got excited about ‘Astum’ and remixing I knew that it was going to be something special.”
The rework is out tomorrow but you can hear it first with us; there also appears to be more coming from Zoon next year, which is great to hear – keep an eye out.
