Over the course of four albums, 2016’s Gypsy Blues, 2019’s Bare Knuckles & Brawn, 2022’s Scream, Holler & Howl and last year’s New Orleans Sessions, the acclaimed Duncan, BC-based duo Blue Moon Marquee — A.W. Cardinal and Jasmine Colette — have firmly established a unique sound that meshes elements of the blues, jazz, jump jive, folk, country, swing and Indigenous soul — without anything sounding out of step. Thematically their work often touches on the underbelly of society, woven with elements of Indigenous storytelling and poetic cadence.

For a lot of folks the traditional powwow music of Turtle Island may not immediately come to mind as sonically syncing up with the aching wail of Mississippi Delta blues. That is until you remember their shared rhythmic structure — a steady, simple, heavy and propulsive pulse that seems older than time itself.

Blue Moon Marquee’s AW Cardinal and Jasmine Colette were reminded of this connection while watching the documentary Rumble: The Indians Who Rocked the World, which featured a segment with Tuscarora/Taino activist and singer/songwriter Pura Fé singing along to a recording by legendary bluesman Charley Patton. The clip helped the band’s Cardinal connect the dots between his Woodland Cree heritage and his love of the blues.

At last year’s Juno Awards ceremonies in Halifax, NS, the duo and Northern Cree‘s Joel Wood celebrated wins for Scream, Holler & Howl and Sing. Pray. Love., respectively and agreed to collaborate. The result is the recently released Get Your Feathers Ready, a unique collaboration between Blue Moon Marquee and the 9-time Grammy Award-nominated powwow and Round Dance group.

After the two acclaimed groups got together to run through songs during an afternoon near Maskwacis, AB, the album’s material was recorded in a breakneck eight-hour recording session the following day, live off the floor.

For Blue Moon Marquee’s Cardinal, the recording sessions were both a dream and a homecoming: He’s from the same region of Canada as Northern Cree — Treaty Six Territory, which comprises large portions of Alberta and Saskatchewan — and he’s a longtime fan. Cardinal, who grew up in Rocky Mountain House, AB carefully guarded his Indigenous identity to avoid trouble, but the new album is the result of a steady transformation and proud acknowledgment of his identity. “Over the years, through music and meeting Northern Cree, it’s given me strength and pride in who I am and that side of my culture,” Cardinal says. 

“As a child I attended powwows but lived in town—I wasn’t immersed in the culture,” Cardinal says. “So to be able to be part of something like this is an incredibly soul-nourishing opportunity. It was one of the most fulfilling musical and spiritual experiences I’ve ever had. I’ve devoted my life to music, and the best way for me to get in touch with my roots is through song—Get Your Feathers Ready is the sound of that full circle moment.”

For both groups making music together and bridging the slim gap between two long-running and profoundly spiritual traditions as providing fertile ground for transformation — to help one see themself, not just as an individual, but part of a human lineage that extends millennia and held together by the timeless and ancient alchemy of the drum.

Album single “Rollin’ & Tumblin'” perfectly encapsulates the album’s timeless groove and deeply spiritual sound and approach in a way that not just makes inherent sense but is profoundly moving.

The live footage was shot at Vancouver’s Hollywood Theatre during their JunoFest ’25 set earlier this year.