ASKO, THE NEW PROJECT FROM MAREK TYLER (nêhiyawak, WAYFINDING), NEW SELF-TITLED LP OUT TODAY VIA DINE ALONE RECORDS
ASKO COLLABORATES WITH ARTISTJOI ARCAND ON AN ORANGE SHIRT DESIGN. PROCEEDS TO BENEFIT THE nêhiyawak LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE - BUY ORANGE SHIRT COLLABORATION HERE
BUY / STREAM ASKO HERE
WATCH / SHARE “wâhkôhtowin” HERE
Photo Credit: Levi Manchak // DOWNLOAD HIGH-RES
Today, ASKO, the new project from Marek Tyler, releases his self-titled album courtesy of Dine Alone. In celebration, he’s sharing a new video for “wâhkôhtowin” and collaborating with artist Joi Arcand to release a new orange shirt for the Day for National Truth and Reconciliation, with proceeds benefiting the nêhiyawak Language Experience (nLE).
On the new video for “wâhkôhtowin” (the act of being related to each other), director Sebastian Buzzalino says, “Marek and I looked to tap into that anticipatory energy that builds once the sweat lodge’s door is closed and the darkness, heat and community take over. Bodies lose their boundaries and become interconnected, emancipatory in their intersections, and burst into new identities. We build new realities through these intersections, in the acts of being related to each other, as the three BIPOC Queens (and Marek’s cameos) emerge into their fully-formed selves.”
Marek adds, "capan (great-great grandfather) Harper told a story about learning our ways. When the lodge door closes, it's dark. The hot rocks' glow may be made out, but everything else disappears. You can hear the water hit the rocks, the feathers above, and the family around us. This song is for that moment when we are not alone. We were here, we are here, and we will always be here."
"tastawiyiniwak, the in-between people, hold significant places within nêhiyaw ways, embodying masculine and feminine qualities. For 3 minutes and 50 seconds, I wanted to strip away the binary and shame and consider what it means to be related. I wanted to celebrate enduring bonds within the nêhiyaw worldview and the importance of maintaining these relationships and our interconnectedness.”
WATCH / SHARE “wâhkôhtowin” HERE
The title of the shirt is nôkosiw-osâwipakowayân (he/she/they comes into view, becomes visible). On the shirt design Arcand says "nôkosiw-osâwipakowayân is my collaboration with Marek's ASKO project, Inspired by the sounds and the sentiments embedded in the music, these designs reflect the movement of waves. Orange Shirt Day is a day inspired by the story of Residential School Survivor — Phyllis Webstad. These shirts are our effort to honour the residential school survivors and those who didn't come home and celebrate Community strength.” The shirts are available to order via the Dine Alone Store.
MORE ABOUT THE NÊHIYAWAK LANGUAGE EXPERIENCE
The nêhiyawak Language Experience (nLE) has been a leading organization in preserving and enriching the nêhiyaw (Cree) language and literacy in Saskatchewan for two decades. They have provided language experience and education to thousands of individuals from across North America and other continents. What sets them apart is their commitment to integrating nêhiyaw values and worldviews into the curriculum, fostering language proficiency, cultural pride, and identity. nLE’s origin is in Sturgeon Lake First Nation, SK, and it is here that they founded a not-for-profit organization that is committed to learning the language on the land, from the land in a collective process that is seeped in homes for intergenerational transmission of nêhiyawewin. They engage in language revitalization research and contribute to restoring nêhiyawewin literacy through workshops, presentations and community projects.
Notably, nLE has hosted summer Cree immersion camps since 2004. These camps provide hands-on experiences in land-based learning, reinforcing cultural connections and language skills. Their programs have been described as medicine contributing to therapeutic nourishment and healing.
WATCH / SHARE “sîsîkwan” HERE
MORE ABOUT ASKO - by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
ASKO is a teaching lodge that you enter into with hesitation and humility. It is an immersive experience in which, if you bring an open heart and an open mind, you will learn to listen in a different register and come out of the lodge with a different perspective than you entered. ASKO is a coming together –a meeting of emotional and intellectual knowledge, a meeting of the heartbeat and the sound of thought travelling through space. It is a place that teaches us how to listen to the energies and forces that continually create nêhiyawak worlds in spite of and despite the noise of colonialism.
It is a storied meeting place of the drum and the rattle.
Marek Tyler is nêhiyaw and Scottish/Irish, and while his name is on the project, ASKO is a gathering place of many collaborators and advisors. In some ways, Tyler is an oskâpêwis, listening deeply to the creative forces of his relatives. He follows the guidance of his câpân (great-great-grandfather), his mom, artist, educator and Knowledge Keeper, Linda Young of Onion Lake Cree Nation, his uncle Dale Awasis and advisor Diana Steinhauer. ASKO's community doesn't end here, though. ASKO includes the kinetics of pow-wow dancers following the heartbeat of the big drum and embraces the choreography of prairie chickens telling the stories of the grasslands. It is the voice of the wind and the songs of the bright blue sky.
Taking this all inside, Tyler responds with ASKO, a creative offering in the form of a soundscape echoing nêhiyaw life and ways of living. ASKO foregrounds these energies, inviting the listener into a rich gathering of the nêhiyaw creative practice across time and space, generations, and forms of life.
WATCH / SHARE “nisis” HERE
Tyler is best known as a touring musician from Treaty 6 (SK/AB - Canada), the drummer from the Polaris Music Prize short-listed and JUNO Award nominated indie band, nêhiyawak. Their debut release, nipiy (Arts and Crafts, 2018), is a thoughtful meditation on water. In some ways, ASKO is a deepening of nipiy. One of Tyler’s advisors, Dale Awasis, explains that ASKO derives from the nêhiyaw foundational principle' askôtowin,' which reflects the following action: we are taught to lead by following and weaving our existence into the web of creation we are a part of.
This is different from how drummers usually work in rock bands. And herein lies Tyler’s transformation from drummer to beat worker. By following the movements, sounds and rhythm of the nêhiyaw lives of his kin, Tyler engages in wayfinding, inspiring and compelling us to make, feel and dream beyond our present moment.
ASKO is meant to move the listener emotionally, spiritually and physically. It is meant to cross cultures and travel. The album is electronic-forward and the lead singer is percussion. You can hear the sounds of waves, wind and wings in these tracks alongside repurposed sounds like the bell of a residential school. The album doesn’t feel heavy though, it was born out of the kinetics of dance and it will make the listener want to move.
Tyler presents us with the sonics of a continuous rebirth, the poetics of a continual unfolding and enfolding.
The result is breath.
The result is simply a gift.
Welcome/tawâw
WATCH / SHARE “nikâwîs” HERE
ASKO LIVE PERFORMANCE DATES
Sept. 12 - Sherwood Park, AB - Festival Place
Sept. 26 - Saskatoon, SK - Amigo’s | Breakout West
April 4 - Calgary, AB - Festival Hall
ASKO TRACKLIST
01 nôkosiw
02 nikâwîs
03 nisis
04 wâhkôhtowin
05 sîsîkwan
06 enoksasant
07 pimohtêwin
08 sôhkisiw
