Following on from the success of the album, this month sees Zoon return with a brand new EP, Big Pharma, again on Paper Bag Records. As the title suggests, the release continues to explore the enduring face of colonialism via the power and violence of the pharmaceutical industry. “I talk about how they destroyed my community of Selkirk, Manitoba and many more small towns and cities,” Monkman explains. “A whole generation completely changed in just a matter of five years. Families torn apart and loved ones lost to addiction and overdoses.” The medical insurance schemes available via treaty cards often only offer the most addictive medication, fuelling an epidemic of opioid addiction within communities already ravaged by genocide.

The release sees Monkman collaborate with an array of talent, with each of the five tracks welcoming artists like Cadence Weapon, Michael Peter Olsen, Sunnsetter and Jasmine Trails. Lead single ‘Astum’ sees Leanne Betasamosake Simpson join to explore themes of addiction more directly. The experience of being caught within the immediate grip of the phenomenon, where the will to change is smothered by a cycle of suffering, survival instincts kicking in as the need to anesthetise the pain returns. “While in active addiction, it’s extremely difficult to function in the known society and it leaves you feeling even more lost,” Monkman explains. “You’re longing for a great relationship but know it could never happen because you’re constantly trying to numb out past traumas.”

The song also sees Zoon explore survival in another form. “‘Astum’ was the first Cree word that my late father, Glen Olsen, taught me as a child,” Monkman explains. “It means ‘hurry up’ or ‘quickly’. He would walk in front of me and at the door say ‘Astum, Daniel! Astum!'” The idea of upholding language via music is something important to the Zoon project, allowing Monkman to contribute to something he was prevented from doing while growing up. “Passing down language was something that I prayed for as a kid,” he continues. “I remember wanting to attend the reservation school to learn but our Ojibway teacher disappeared one month earlier and never came back.”

And you, wanted your freedom
We’ll see, mourning, you’ll be crying
We’ll seek, somebody else, love
We’ll be, somebody else now

Watching as we speak into
the ocean
Holding back our years in the mourning

Check out the video directed by boy wonder with production Co. RAINBOW LAND below:

Big Pharma is out via Paper Bag Records on the 21st June and you can pre-order it from the Zoon Bandcamp page.

Photos by Vanessa Heins

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