Reclaiming the Archive: Mali Obomsawin’s Automatic and the Fight Against Institutional Extraction

Executive Overview

In the contemporary landscape of contemporary avant-garde and indigenous music, few artists are pushing the boundaries of sonic sovereignty quite like bassist, composer, and vocalist Mali Obomsawin. Following the critical acclaim of her 2022 debut studio album, Sweet Tooth, Obomsawin returns with her sophomore record, Automatic. Born out of a turbulent, emotionally disorienting period defined by intense public scrutiny and exhaustive touring cycles, the new album represents a profound leap forward in her artistic and political evolution.

At its core, Automatic is not merely a collection of songs; it is a meticulously constructed counter-archive. The project emerged directly from an archival encounter during the rollout of Sweet Tooth, when Obomsawin gained access to hours of mid-20th-century ethnological recordings of the Abenaki language held within the institutional vaults of Dartmouth College. While her debut scratched the surface of these historical materials, the deeper, prolonged exposure to them fundamentally transformed her creative process.

The resulting album is an uncompromising critique of—and defense against—the historical and ongoing exploitation of Indigenous culture by academic and cultural institutions. By weaving together contemporary jazz improvisation, archival audio of her ancestors, and fierce anti-colonial philosophy, Obomsawin has crafted a work designed explicitly to resist commodification. "Behind Automatic is a deep awareness about institutions’ predatory relationship with Native material," Obomsawin reflects. "I wanted to make a record that institutions couldn’t own."

Detailed Chronology: From Sweet Tooth to the Creation of Automatic

The Aftermath of Sweet Tooth

The journey toward Automatic began in the shadow of Sweet Tooth, a record that established Obomsawin as a vital new voice bridging free jazz, chamber folk, and Abenaki storytelling. The widespread critical acclaim and subsequent touring schedule placed the young artist on a relentless carousel of public appearances, interviews, and live performances. For Obomsawin, this period of high visibility was uniquely disorienting. Moving from the quiet, internal labor of composition to the externalized demands of the music industry created a psychological and emotional trough.

It was within this vulnerability that the conceptual framework for her second album began to take root. The transition from the localized, community-rooted narratives of Sweet Tooth to the expansive, archival-driven scope of Automatic mirrored her own internal navigation of trauma, exhaustion, and resilience.

The Dartmouth College Archives and the Catalyst for Change

A pivotal turning point occurred during the promotional cycle of her debut. Obomsawin came into possession of hours of mid-1900s ethnological field recordings documenting the Abenaki language, which had been archived and warehoused at Dartmouth College. For generations, academic institutions have operated as repositories for Indigenous artifacts, languages, and oral histories, often acquiring them through dynamics of power, displacement, and paternalism.

While Obomsawin had sampled or referenced snippets of these recordings on Sweet Tooth, sustained access to the Dartmouth vaults during the writing of Automatic shifted her perspective from passive referencing to active reclamation. Listening to hours of her ancestors’ voices mediated through academic preservation practices highlighted a disturbing truth: the institutionalization of Indigenous voices strips them of their living context, turning human heritage into sterile data sets owned by universities and museums.

Recognizing this dynamic galvanized Obomsawin. She resolved to short-circuit the traditional cycle of institutional extraction. If archives like Dartmouth’s sought to freeze Native life in the amber of mid-century anthropology, Obomsawin’s response would be to thaw those recordings, inject them with contemporary breath, and place them back into a living, evolving continuum of Abenaki culture.

The Crafting of the Lead Single, "Automatic"

The apex of this methodology is found in the album’s lead single, "Automatic." The track serves as a masterclass in sonic reclamation, pairing Obomsawin’s resonant vocals with pristine, yet weathered, archival recordings of her great-grand relative, a woman named Malian.

To bridge the decades-long temporal chasm between her own voice and Malian’s, Obomsawin collaborated with acclaimed turntablist Andrew Broder. Together, they processed the historical recordings, utilizing the turntable not merely as a playback device, but as an avant-garde instrument capable of manipulating time, texture, and memory.

"The turntable is an instrument that explores time and temporality and is able to give a form of agency to the ancestors in the recordings," Obomsawin explains. Rather than allowing Malian’s voice to remain trapped as a static historical artifact within an academic database, the turntable allows her voice to converse directly with the present. The past and the present collapse into a single, cohesive moment of artistic agency.

Supporting Context & Metrics: The Ensemble and Conceptual Framework

The Collaborative Ensemble

While Automatic is anchored by Obomsawin’s vision, it is brought to life by a stellar ensemble of avant-garde and contemporary jazz virtuosos. The album features:

• Taylor Ho Bynum on cornet
• Zack O’Farrill on drums
• Adam O’Farrill on trumpet/percussion
• Magdalena Abregom on guitar

This collective of musicians operates not as a standard backing band, but as co-conspirators in a sonic investigation. Their contributions elevate the material beyond traditional genre boundaries, merging the structural complexity of modern chamber jazz with the raw, emotional urgency of free improvisation.

The Thematic Scope: War, Identity, and the Odanak People

Lyrically and compositionally, the tracks on Automatic extend far beyond personal introspection. The songs serve as a profound meditation on war, displacement, and Indigenous identity, channeled explicitly through the historical and contemporary experiences of the Odanak people (members of the Abenaki Nation based in Quebec, Canada).

Obomsawin uses these compositions to dismantle the colonial narratives that have long defined Indigenous histories in North America. By framing traditional Abenaki language and music not as static museum exhibits, but as living, breathing frameworks for improvisational composition, she asserts that Indigenous culture is inherently modern, adaptable, and forward-looking.

Tracklist Breakdown

The sequencing of Automatic guides the listener through a deliberate emotional and historical arc, balancing meditative acoustic spaces with explosive free-jazz breakdowns and archival interventions:

1. "Nawa" – A scene-setting opening track that establishes the atmospheric and spiritual tone of the record.
2. "Automatic" – The pivotal lead single featuring archival recordings of Malian manipulated via turntable by Andrew Broder.
3. "Triage" – A tense, rhythmically complex piece reflecting the psychological toll of institutional extraction and modern existence.
4. "O’temin" – A lyrical exploration of kinship and lineage rooted in Odanak perspectives.
5. "Mou, qyand j’y suis" – A linguistic and sonic exploration of presence, absence, and geographical displacement.
6. "Malian" – A direct homage to her great-grand relative, centering ancestral resilience as an active force.
7. "Kohua II" – A continuation of her sonic investigations into free-form Abenaki musical traditions.
8. "Venez" – A closing statement that invites the listener into a restored space of cultural autonomy and communal memory.

Official Statements & Industry Impact

The announcement of Automatic has sent ripples through the contemporary jazz and Indigenous arts communities, positioning Obomsawin as one of the most intellectually rigorous artists working today.

In statements surrounding the album’s release, Obomsawin has been unequivocal about the political dimensions of her art. Music, for her, is a site of territorial and cultural recovery. Commenting on the driving philosophy of the record, she notes:

"Behind Automatic is a deep awareness about institutions’ predatory relationship with Native material. I wanted to make a record that institutions couldn’t own."

This sentiment strikes at the heart of contemporary debates surrounding repatriation, cultural property, and intellectual sovereignty. For decades, universities, libraries, and anthropological societies have claimed ownership over the cultural output of Indigenous communities under the guise of "preservation." Obomsawin’s work exposes the fallacy of this model. Preservation without consent or community control is simply another form of theft.

By weaponizing avant-garde jazz and modern sound design against archival extraction, Obomsawin offers a blueprint for how contemporary artists can reclaim stolen histories. Her use of the turntable on "Automatic" is symbolic: by scratching, looping, and manipulating the archival past, she breaks the linear, colonial timeline that relegates Native peoples to history books, forcing the listener to confront the ancestors as living contemporaries.

Future Outlook: The Legacy of Automatic

As Automatic prepares to make its official debut across physical and digital platforms, its long-term implications for both the music industry and cultural heritage preservation are profound.

First, the album challenges jazz critics and listeners to expand their definitions of improvisation. By treating ethnological recordings and ancestral voices as active collaborators rather than passive samples, Obomsawin expands the lexicon of free jazz, wedding it directly to indigenous resurgence movements.

Second, Automatic sets a new standard for ethical artistic practice in the digital age. As musicians increasingly draw from historical archives, public domain libraries, and ethnographic collections, Obomsawin’s work asks critical questions about ownership, consent, and lineage. Who has the right to access, process, and profit from historical recordings of marginalized communities? And how can artists bypass traditional institutional gatekeepers to return culture directly to the communities from which it was extracted?

For Mali Obomsawin, the answers lie in radical self-determination, unyielding artistic integrity, and the enduring power of the Odanak voice. With Automatic, she has not only delivered a brilliant sophomore record—she has created an untouchable sonic sanctuary that preserves the past while defiantly claiming the future.