Woven Together for Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives

Amanda Webster, a mother of three had moved from Arizona to the Tri-State area in Kentucky to find work so she could support her kids – a 10 – year old boy, a toddler and a month old baby. On December 3, 2018 she was found murdered in a Florence hotel room.

(Source:https://www.wcpo.com/news/local-news/boone-county/florence/amanda-webster-arizona-woman-slain-in-florence-hotel-room-was-mother-of-three)

Just a year earlier Vanessa Tsosie a 29-year old Native American woman from Arizona was found dead in at Brook Haven Park in Farmington New Mexico. The police and detectives involved in the case believe she was murdered, as there were signs of “foul play” on the scene.

(Source: http://www.ksje.com/news/local-news/police-investigate-womans-death/)

In 2010 42-year old Terry Benally, a transgender Navajo woman was beaten to death in Albuquerque New Mexico. It is suspected that race was a factor in the killing.

(Source: https://nabpi.unm.edu/assets/documents/mmiwg-briefing-paper.pdf)

Cecilia Finona is as of this moment still reported missing. She was last seen at her house in Farmington New Mexico on May 30^th. Her family and friends have been searching for the New Mexico grandmother and military veteran for over a month. She is of Native American descent.

(Source: https://www.ktnv.com/news/search-for-missing-navajo-woman-nears-one-month-mark)

What appears as disturbing, yet seemingly isolated events, is in fact an overwhelming and devastating issue all across the United States and Canada. The so-called “Highway Of Tears”, a 720-kilometre section of the Canadian Highway 16 that connects Prince George and Prince Rupert, (British Columbia, Canada) gained its name because of the disproportionately high number of indigenous women who were either killed or went missing in its vicinity.

(Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highway_of_Tears)

According to CNN an “estimate of the National Crime Information Center shows 5712 reports of missing Native American women in 2016 alone”.

(Source:https://edition.cnn.com/2019/07/15/us/native-woman-remains-found/index.html)

The album Spirit Line: Woven Together for Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives was the brainchild of Clara Natonabah, Santa Fe based singer-songwriter, of Navajo (Diné) and Dutch descent. The album features artistic compositions from different Indigenous nations and discusses the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Trans & Two-Spirit people (MMIWGT2S). All proceeds from the album will go to the Sovereign Bodies Institute, a research institute dedicated to community-engaged research on gender and sexual violence against Indigenous people. Annita Luchessi, Executive Director of SBI, has decided to see over all future sales of the album, and include copies of the album in care packages being sent to affected families.

The organization Three Sisters Collective is devoted to empowerment of Indigenous lands and communities. Through collaborative projects and activism they aim to address issues like MMIWGT2S and give a voice to those looking for their loved ones. As part of this mission they decided to co-fund Spirit Line and help make the album a reality.

We conducted an interview with Ishita Sinha, the producer of Spirit Line to get a better understanding of what the listener can expect from an album dealing with such a harrowing topic.

1. How did you first meet Clara Natonabah, the Creative Director of the album Spirit Line: Woven Together for Our Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives?

Clara Natonabah and I went to Berklee College of Music. We had a class together during our first year at the college, which is where we met. We became really good friends and it was great to have someone you could count on in the crazy big city of Boston. We would run class projects by each other and discuss future goals. It’s funny how many times in the music business your college friends become your contemporaries. 

2. How did production on the album begin?

Clara had already spoken with all the women who were to contribute their pieces to the album, and had been working with them to get the audio files ready to be sent to me. Her preparedness really helped in setting a good start to the project. Say Her Name was the first track we worked on. For that, she sent me audio stems of lead vocals, a few Native American drum tracks, and her background vocals. I then EQ-ed, quantized, cleaned up those stems, and built the track around that material. The processes for Youth Prayer Chant (YPC) and Justice were similar too. I got lead, background vocals, and guitar stems for YPC and Clara’s lead vocals for Justice. I began building the tracks and sent them to Clara for feedback.

3. How did Clara guide you through the process of navigating this sensitive topic?

Her feedback and guidance were crucial to the way the tracks—and the entire album—turned out. The purpose of the album is to bring forth to the world the story of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, Trans & Two-Spirit people; to educate and spread awareness, and also start dialogues in communities. We had to be sure that every element contributed to that purpose—whether instrument, voice, or effect, like the sound of the wind in Justice. Our countless discussions before and during the making of this album were important in understanding the depth of that responsibility. One point that stuck with me the most during production was that, yes, we will be sensitive in our approach, but without compromising the boldness and fierceness in presenting the stories of women. The fierceness is not to be mistaken as aggression, but to assert the urgency of the issue at hand. You can hear that emotion in the chorus of Justice and in the second verse of YPC.

4. Some of the artists on this album are quite new to the world of music and music production. How did you help them feel comfortable?

The album is first and foremost the voice of the Native American people. And who better to tell their story than the mothers and daughters of the community? When you listen to the album you will hear the honesty in their voices. When I first heard the raw vocal stems for all the songs and spoken word pieces, I was struck by that same honesty. To preserve that rawness, I kept my adjustments minimal—editing and quantizing the audio, a little bit of pitch correction, and some EQ. I didn’t want the singers and speakers to worry too much about pitch and other technicalities. It was the intention and emotion in their vocal performances that was most important, which also couldn’t be replaced using any plug-in or processing. Working as a team with the songwriters to fully realize their piece is what I love the most about being a producer.

5. There is a part in the song Say Her Name where we hear the names of girls and women who went missing. Tell us about your creative approach to this song.

The song was written by Dr. Christina Castro (Jemez Pueblo, Taos Pueblo & Xicana) of the Three Sisters Collective, who co-funded the album. The song calls you to speak the names of the missing women and to keep their memories alive. At the end of the song you hear those names spoken by Christina and her five-year-old daughter, Maize Jade Castro Harris. I wanted the listener to feel like they were standing between them. I had their voices on three separate channels and used Logic Pro’s Tremolo plug-in to automate the panning on each of the channels. That way, one name starts on the left and before it ends on the right, the next one starts on the right and moves to the left. It’s a simple trick and it helped me convey that haunting effect. There is also reverb and delay that helped expand the space that you’re in with the two voices.

6. Tell us more about Youth Prayer Chant, which was written by a thirteen-year-old songwriter, one of the youngest artists on the album.

Youth Prayer Chant was written by Anjamora Ishi Sato McLaughlin (Taos Pueblo, Ainu Japanese & Irish). The beauty of this album is that it brought women from all generations of society to come together as one voice. As the name suggests, the song is essentially a chant, and therefore, it consists of a single verse repeated twice. And though it sounds simple, there is a lot happening. When I first heard it, I knew we needed to go bigger with the production on the second verse. Clara had sent me rally sounds of young women marching and chanting together that we faded in and out of the song. It puts you right in the middle of the energy of that rally. Once the rally sound fades away, I decided to simply leave the listener alone with the acoustic guitar and lead vocals. I also recorded solo violin with Bebe H. Kim at my studio. The violin leads us into the second verse, driving the second half forward, like a march. Drums and shakers are ceremonial in Native American culture, and I decided to use only those two elements for percussion in the second half. I layered multiple drum sounds to give it the size it needed. There are also voices doubling lead vocals in unison, an octave above and below, as well as vocal harmonies. In all, there are over 20 voices in the second half. Other than the background vocals that Clara sent me, Amira Gill and I also recorded a whole lot of vocal layers at my studio. You can read the names of all the young women who contributed their voices for this song in the liner notes of the album. I’m really happy with the way this song turned out. It takes you in a trance.

7. With so much of production being “in the box” nowadays, how do live instruments fit into your process?

Live instruments add so much emotion and soul to the music. Of course, we have come a long way in music technology and virtual instruments, but live instruments are quite irreplaceable.

I follow a simple rule in my process. Even if most of my production uses virtual instruments, I try to have at least one live element. Mostly, it’s a solo instrument or an instrument that’s playing a big role in the arrangement. And if you find good players to do that for you, it can really take your production to the next level. And overdubs are a great way to add more voices and make things sound fuller! That’s what I did for YPC. We recorded several passes of Bebe playing a few different lines and harmonies.

8. How did your time at Berklee prepare you for this collaboration?

My education at Berklee College of Music was instrumental in making me the musician I am today! When I first went there, I had no idea what MIDI was, how to work with software instruments, or how to bring the arrangements in my head to life. I learned all of that at school. I had incredible professors who taught and guided me through my journey at Berklee. I now realize how my circle of friends also played a huge role in my progress as student. It was a great combination of healthy competition and camaraderie. We all were eager to learn. As I mentioned earlier, many of my friends from Berklee have become contemporaries and we often collaborate with each other. For this project, too, I reached out to a few of them and it was amazing to see how each one of their contributions added more and more character to the album. Esin Aydingoz played piano, Ian Silver played guitar, Bebe H. Kim played violin, and I worked with Garry Purohit and Trisha Hildebrandt for mixing and mastering. I could have decided to do it all by myself, closed up in my studio, but what’s the fun in that? In my opinion, collaboration is the best way to create music.

Thank you Ishita for this interview and all the amazing work you are doing.