Mix'n it up with Mother

Page 16

Artist-Eagle & Hawk

Album-Mother Earth

Song-Indian City

Label-Arbor Records

Producer-Chris Burke-Gaffney, Vince Fontaine and Brandon Friesen

Mother Earth is the fifth album released by Winnipeg-based Eagle & Hawk and earned the group a nomination in the Best Music of Aboriginal Canada category at this year's Juno Awards. The band's previous album, On and On, won in the same category in 2002.

Mother Earth features 11 tracks from the band that has developed a loyal following both here at home and on the international stage.

The album features a mix of rock, traditional and spoken word that keeps the listener guessing at what's coming up next.

The CD starts out with three straight out rock tunes-I See Red, Mother Earth and-then shifts gears with Song for Turtle Island, an interesting mesh of spoken work, rock back-beat and traditional singing. It's followed up with Circle, a song featuring traditional singing and drumming that sounds as if it was plucked right off the powwow trail.

The song Sundancer comes up next, a return to the rock style the album began with.

Indian City, the seventh song on the CD, kicks things up a notch or two, picking up the tempo and throwing together a mix of funk, traditional and rap.

The pace slows down a bit with the next cut, You Own This Town, then picks up again on Search Injun, another spoken word number, this time with a definite techno feel to it.

The album has a number of strong and interesting songs and it manages to keep your interest almost all the way through. Whether it's the pacing of the album, or whether the album's producers chose to put the strongest songs first, either way, interest wanes by the time the last two tracks come on. Overall, though, the album is a good one, and should serve to satisfy the band's existing fans and earn them quite a few new ones.