Jake Blount and Mali Obomsawin’s revelatory album, symbiont, is so expansive it feels reductive to simply classify it as a concept album, or assign it to any specific genre. Though the world they create is set in the future, it wrestles with the rapid destruction of the natural world and our connection to it in a way many musicians avoid.
In the album introduction, Blount and Obomsawin explain their embrace of symbiont as a remix album: “This record reflects not only the natural harmonies that exist between our individual and cultural perspectives, but also an arduous process of reconciliation through remix” And the elements being remixed are wide ranging: from Slave Songs of the United States, to a 1980 John Trudell speech, to plants (there are several songs that feature work around a “synthesizer controlled by an aloe plant”). These primary sources are layered in alongside masterful instrumentation and spoken word that have an immediate command over the listener.
The prelude is a radio broadcast in the near future, as a news announcer describes catastrophic climate disasters and increasing unrest. This, of course, is close enough to present day news reports to throughly unsettle. She next describes a new phenomenon: self identified symbionts are spreading an “earth first” message and amassing followers as they infiltrate the airwaves. If you’re thrown by that radio broadcast, the Blount and Obomsawin keep you on your toes with the next track: “What’s You Gonna do When the World’s on Fire,” closing it with, ”You can join her in allegiance, or perish in defiance but you will go to her in the end.”
The album is split into two acts: the first, “To Death and Fire” and the second “The Green Road.” As the name suggests, there is a darkness and urgency to this first half, a feeling of being on the run. It feels cinematic both conceptually and sonically. Within the strings I could see the glow of a campfire, while in the percussion and arrangements, I felt the edginess of Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’s scores.
“The Green Road” opens the next section, a song that asks, now that everything has been destroyed, how do we move forward? Is it possible there’s something better ahead? It features more spoken word by Blount: “You are just the fingertips of something – unable to grasp the wrist you are attached to, and unable, therefore, to perceive your connection to the greater whole. We have come to remind you.” The second half of the album reinforces this reminder of the power of our connection to the natural world.
The political and societal moment we’re in requires more of us than lamentation and despair. It requires invention. Blount and Obomsawin rise to the occasion and they call us to join them in this reckoning both within our own world, and within the lush world they’ve created in symbiont. The albumopens a portal into an imagined future, born from darkness, but salvaged by creation.