klatwa by Saltchuck City Orchestra

Klatwa – Embark
I trace my finger over this cover, the curved lines and angles forming the word "Klatwa – to embark", the same marks my great-grandfather's pen once made when writing to villages across the mountains. The songs within pulse with movement: salmon fighting upstream, crows banking against dusky skies, ancestors descending from stars, and communities coming together. This Chinook shorthand also flowed between Stʼatʼimc hands in the 1800s, a code of connection that barely survived.

I still hear my mother's voice in the melody of "Gathering." She would hum it first, barely audible, in the residential school's shadowed corners. Girls would gather around bodies huddled close, as she taught them to shape their mouths around Stʼatʼimc syllables the teachers had forbidden. They memorized each word, each inflection, passing it between them like a secret flame that mustn't die. Years later, when I record this song, I feel her breath in mine—the same defiant air that kept our language burning.

Vancouver rose from this coastal soil nourished by the intertwined roots of many peoples. Saltchuck City Orchestra honours this convergence with each note a declaration of defiance, each harmony an offering to those who found strength in unity, and each rhythm inviting us all to dance. - Russell Wallace

Redshift was founded in Vancouver, Canada with a focus on championing the music of contemporary composers.

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