Full disclosure: I’m a Wolf Castle fan. So much so that in applying to write for this network, I mentioned him as one of my favourite artists. His fourth EP, Da Vinci’s Inquest has only proven that support to be correctly placed.
This record is about shedding selves to find others within. It’s about befores and afters in the way many things are when you’re stuck in the liminal space between adolescence and adulthood, with your mind in one and/or the other.
BEFORE
- Da Vinci: multidisciplinary polymath and posterboy of the Italian Renaissance. Brilliant. Martyr of reinvention. Work full of religious references with no definitive affiliation.
- Roman Catholicism*: the World’s 2nd largest religious denomination. “Largest non-government provider of education and health care” (Wikipedia), perpetrator of endless historic and contemporary horrors.
- Colonialism*: One of them ^. A system that pioneered before and after by weighing calculable gain against immeasurable loss.
- The connections between the 3.
*ongoing.
AFTER
- Dismissal of fame: a new perspective on prior releases.
- Setting: Pabineau First Nation, Mi’kma’ki, and the internet.
- Brotherhood: featuring Shift from tha 902, Raphael de la Rez, Flacko Finesse, and Talon the Rez Kid Wonder.
- The connections between the 3.
That’s why this record excels.
It doesn’t gloss, or shuffle, or overindulge. Every track carries the tension of deciphering what “then” means: when then was, and whether then is now in the name of self-discovery. This trajectory is perfectly exemplified by both the tracks — “Get Lit”, whose opening score shifts from cinematic strings to 90s video game beats in the last few moments — and lyrics: “my medicine pouch got sweet grass and my tax card.”
The music has a glorious sense of time that acknowledges its complexity in a way that’s wholly unique. Even the genres of the individual songs are considered in a way that reflects it; “Summertime Crush” was born in the wrong decade in a way that’s just so right.
When is growing outgrowing? When is re-evaluation a revolution?
Da Vinci’s Inquest is the quintessential 21st century coming of age story. No one could ask for a better capstone to the artist’s three previous EPs. Written, recorded and produced primarily by himself, they earned two ECMA nominations for Indigenous Artist of the Year and one for Prix NB Recording of the Year, as well as a recent gig in my hometown at Sappyfest.
Not to mention that it’s catchy as hell in it’s own right. “Top Dog” plays out: “That’s what we’re talking about 2021 we’re gonna change the world 2022, on and on we go…”, and this record makes me believe it.
In the meantime, though, let Wolf Castle change yours.
P.S. Da Vinci’s Inquest was a CBC show about a “Vancouver cop turned coroner [who] searches for truth and justice with the help of his friends”? It just keeps going.
