In his recent Wire interview, Minneapolis born pow wow singer Joe Rainey tells Joshua Minsoo Kim about his debut album Niineta, which mixes traditional Ojibwe singing with electronics by musician and producer Andrew Broder. After witnessing a member of a fellow drum group dancing to a DJ set by Broder at Eaux Claires music festival in Wisconsin, Rainey started to imagine how these two worlds of music could merge further. “I always knew it was possible, but I didn’t expect it to manifest in front of all of us,” Rainey tells Minsoo Kim. “Later I had the chance to approach Broder and I thought, this can be done, let’s try it.”

Here, Rainey shares a recording from St Croix Pow Wow, which took place at Turtle Lake, Wisconsin in July. The recording features Rainey singing with two different drum groups: Crossroads and Bad River.

“The first song with Crossroads was a song I used to sing with the late Milan “Bobby” Williams,” Rainey explains over email. “He had a cassette tape recording of a man named Benny Rogers and we listened to that a lot. Crossroads lead singer Bernie Lemieux was a dear friend to Bobby as well. Bobby recently journeyed on to the next life and for Bernie and I to sing this song at the Pow Wow meant a lot to the both of us.”

“The second song is a tune from Odanah, Wisconsin,” Rainey continues, “home of the Bad River Ojibwe and the Bad River Singers”.

Read more in The Wire 462. Wire subscribers can also read the full interview with Rainey online via the digital archive. Niineta is released by 37d03d.