Mali Obomsawin
PROJECTS:
XTET
Mali Obomsawin is a performer and composer dedicated to improvised music. She is best known for her evocative singing, storytelling and bass playing in her experimental ensembles and her rock band Deerlady. She is a citizen of Abenaki Nation at Odanak.
Her music was featured in the FX series Reservation Dogs in 2023. She composed the score for the Oscar-nominated documentary Sugarcane (2025) directed by Julian Brave Noisecat and Emily Kassie, and has collaborated with musicians Raven Chacon, esperanza spalding, Yo-Yo Ma, Taylor Ho Bynum, and visual artist Cannupa Hanska Luger. Her two primary projects, Deerlady and Mali Obomsawin XTET, are both poised to release new material in 2026.
DEERLADY
Performing as the shoegaze duo Deerlady, Mali Obomsawin and Magdalena Abrego are two improvising artists bonded in the language of experimentation. Their debut album Greatest Hits is a journey through songs penned by Obomsawin that explore decay and delicate moments – cradled by Abrego’s worldbuilding and evocative guitar playing. The band’s first single “There, There” premiered on the hit FX series Reservation Dogs in 2023, and the album, released the following January, has quickly won over audiences across Indian Country and the US. Described by NPR’s Lars Gotrich as a “headbang while you weep” experience, Deerlady looks forward to the release of a new music in 2026.
PRESS:
“Obomsawin reminds listeners constantly that folk music shouldn’t be about pliant, pretty subservience, and that Abenaki culture is loudly, proudly living and expanding.”
The Guardian
“The most auspicious album I heard this year”
Larry Blumenfeld, NPR
“A breath of fresh air…It not only works as a potent commentary on Indigenous heritage, autonomy and experiences, but as gripping, dynamic, and thunderous music in and of itself. All that without an ounce of overshowing.”
JazzTimes
“Obomsawin aims to shine a light on the largely hidden history of Indigenous jazz”
WNYC
“One of those albums that utterly defy expectation or convention - it occupies its own universe, arriving from leftfield to blow your mind.”
Folk Radio UK
