The intergenerational bond at the heart of Aysanabee's Watin

Singer-songwriter Aysanabee's Watin is one of this year's 10 Polaris Music Prize-nominated albums, and CBC Music's Shortlist Shortcut series is back to help music fans find out the key details about the shortlisted record.

Dig into the stories behind the albums, the tracks you need to know, and the perfect summer activities to complement your listening. You can also listen to The Ten radio special on the album, below.

Artist:

Aysanabee.

Album:

Watin.

Polaris Music Prize history: 

This is Aysanabee's debut album and first nomination. 

Story behind the nominated album: 

In 2020, during the first year of the pandemic lockdown, Toronto-based artist Aysanabee was concerned about his grandfather's health, isolation and well-being. Since his grandpa was more than 1,000 kilometres away in a care home in Thunder Bay, Ont., Aysanabee began calling him every day to check in and talk. Those initial chats evolved into deeper, more meaningful conversations, and Aysanabee found himself interviewing his grandfather as the elder man recalled memories and stories he'd never shared before about his childhood, growing up in residential school, the intergenerational trauma of his own father's experiences of residential school, falling in love and having a family, and the ways in which he, his language, and his culture survived, resisted and thrived. His grandfather had been born Watin, but was forced to change his name to Walter. He was ready to reclaim his name, and after spending so much time hearing Watin's stories and the stories of his family, so was Aysanabee.

When Aysanabee was born, his mother called him Evan Pang rather than Evan Aysanabee. Evan is Oji-Cree from the Sandy Lake First Nation, and his mother wanted to shield him from the anti-Indigenous racism in northern Ontario, where he grew up in small towns and remote communities. Eventually when his brother moved out, leaving behind his guitar and his Bob Marley CDs, Evan taught himself how to play and sing and began writing songs. As a teenager, he also worked in the mining industry, but after a near-death experience falling through ice while snowshoeing across a river, he quit and headed to Toronto to pursue music. At his mother's urging, he pursued an additional career path and received his journalism diploma in 2012 and worked a series of jobs while continuing to hone his musical skills. 

But it wasn't until Evan's daily talks with his grandfather that his debut album began to take shape. With Watin's blessing, Evan recorded their conversations, and he began to write songs. In 2021, he signed to Ishkōdé Records as Aysanabee, reclaiming his family name, and in 2022, he released his debut album, Watin, named after his grandfather. The record opens with Watin's voice and fragments of his story are heard throughout nine interludes interspersed with Aysanabee's 10 songs. It feels like an echo of the conversations between grandfather and grandson, and the interludes centre Watin in a profound, powerful and loving way. Aysanabee's mastery of storytelling is evident in both his lyricism and musicianship, creating tension and urgency in repetition and instrumentation, but never at the expense of melodic hooks and sing-along choruses. 

Watin Aysanabee lived to see his namesake album released and celebrated wildly across different album charts and on year-end lists in 2022. Evan also earned his first Juno nomination for contemporary Indigenous artist of the year, and his jaw-dropping performance at the 2023 Juno Awards with Northern Cree was among the evening's highlights. But, just days before Evan's performance at the Indspire Awards on May 11, 2023, Watin passed away.   

Notable players:

The album was produced, engineered and mixed by Hill Kourkoutis, the Juno Award winner who made history in 2022 as the first woman ever to be nominated for — and win — recording engineer of the year. It was mastered by Kristian Montano.

Standout songs: 

'Long Gone'

The instrumentation and the lyrics work perfectly throughout this song to tell both the frightening reality of children being stolen from their homes and forced into residential schools, and then the heartbreaking strength and resilience of these kids as they tried to run back home. As Aysanabee sings, "They came and took us from our bed," plucked strings echo the lyrics, building out to a kind of haunted low humming that sounds like an ill-fated wind in a horror story. Eventually the tension breaks, just a little, fuzzing out to something warmer, the sound of an organ and backup vocals. The sound is soft but resistant as the children plot their own middle-of-the-night escape before the plucked strings return.

'We Were Here'

The song opens with Aysanabee's pointed question: "They say that we can reconcile this/ put it in the past/ they say that we can reconcile this/ what if I can't?" It's so affecting, and "We Were Here" has been described as a protest song, but it's so much bigger than that. I love the album version of the song, but I also deeply appreciate Aysanabee's performance of it live at the Juno Awards. Evan plays the piano gently under Watin's interlude, ensuring his grandfather's words are part of the song, and then picks up his guitar and leads his fantastic rock band in a rousing performance featuring superstar drum group Northern Cree.. 

Recommended if you like:

William Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Buffy Sainte-Marie. 

Summer activity pairing:

For settlers: meaningful acts of decolonization. This album is part of the story of so-called Canada and asks deep questions about what's really possible when it comes to reconciliation when anti-Indigenous racism and settler colonial violence is ongoing and happening across the country every day. 

Don't miss Shortlist Summer: a season-long showcase of the 10 albums shortlisted for the 2023 Polaris Music Prize. Read the weekly Polaris Shortlist Shortcut feature at cbcmusic.ca/polaris and tune into The Ten radio special every Sunday night at cbc.ca/listen.