Medicine Singers and Friends Dissolved Sonic Barriers at Ottawa Bluesfest

While Ranaldo harnessed his massive set of guitar pedals to create sonic landscapes, occasionally employing his phone as an Ebow or simply a physical bow, Gat used this space to unleash lightning-fast guitar phrasings and jagged noodlings that threatened to fly off the rails. As the group moved into "Sunrise (Rumble)," the sparse crowd's pensiveness turned to joy as the track transitioned into Link Wray's most iconic riff.

In the absence of late musician Jaimie Branch's trumpet parts, which played an important role in the mood of Medicine Singers' debut LP, Ranaldo and Gat brilliantly substituted these parts with a variety of otherworldly sounds. Yonatan hunched over a mini synthesizer, while Lee created echoed resonances by manipulating a makeshift contraption featuring antennas strung over two guitar pickups, which he would scrape across the stage floor.

Going well over their scheduled 75-minute performance slot, Medicine Singers unleashed an eclectic and eccentric fusion of traditional and avant-garde sounds, breaking festival time constraints in the same defiant way they broke musical barriers.