The first song I heard from Ribbon Skirt was “Wrong Planet” – I’m not sure where, but it stopped me dead in my tracks. The urgency of Tashiina Buswa’s vocal, and her incendiary, grungy instrumental with bandmate Billy Riley, hits like a freight train. It sounds like what Hole could have been in the ’90s if Courtney Love hadn’t been a trainwreck – raw and incandescent.
Bite Down, released by Mint Records last Friday (April 11), is the duo’s debut album as Ribbon Skirt. I put it on while trying to write a book review, and within minutes, I’d abandoned that task and devoted my full attention to what I think will be one of the best records of the year.
They’ve released music under the name Love Language prior to this, but Ribbon Skirt marks their reinvention, moving away from a lighter indie jangle-pop sound to a darker, intense post-punk roar. Bite Down is a monster of an album: it makes you feel every jagged edge of Buswa’s experience, and I’ve had it on repeat for days.
Buswa’s lyrics are fierce and provocative, often grappling with her Anishinaabe identity and the weight of memory and grief. “They want 2000s Buffy Marie / They want my status, but they’re getting my teeth,” she sings on “Off Rez,” referencing the recently scandal-plagued folk singer Buffy Sainte-Marie while unpacking the fraught expectations placed on Indigenous artists. It’s a biting, tongue-in-cheek line delivered in a deadpan Juliette Lewis-style vocal.
The confidence and versatility that fuel Buswa and Riley on this record are stunning, from the distortion-drenched chaos of “Wrong Planet”, to the breathless, pounding percussion on “Cellophane”, with its ominous, swirling synths.
In this revealing interview with Range, Buswa discusses the intensity of both the composition and the video for “Cellophane”:
“Cellophane” explores the desperation of losing my grandfather/Shoomis, who to me represented access to a traditional Indigenous way of life. He was a residential school survivor and a fluent Anishinaabemowin speaker, one of the last ones. As a young child, I spent time on his trapline, out in the bush trapping rabbits, fishing, and hunting with him. I would watch him make bannock every Sunday and help pick blueberries with him and my mom during the summer. Having access to my Shoomis was super essential for me to be able to feel connected to my culture. When he died suddenly when I was 17, I felt a sharp sense of anxiety at the finality of his death.
Despite the adventurousness of the songs, Bite Down never feels performative or forced. The stylistic shifts are often surprising—autotuned vocal processing on “41,” the Wet Leg-ish moments on “Look What You Did”—but they never seem gimmicky. Buswa and Riley are masters at building atmosphere, layering drum machines and squelching synths (with production by Scott ‘Monty’ Munro of Preoccupations and Marlaena Moore, and mixing by Greg Saunier of Deerhoof) over the live band’s energy. It’s also more cohesive as a record than as a collection of songs. The comedown of album closer “Earth Eater” feels well-earned after the intensity of the preceding tracks, leaving the listener drained and electrified. The final line in the song gives the album its title: “Bite Down / Earth Eater” ends the album on a despondent, melancholy note.
Bite Down works as a straight-up rock record, with enough ambiguity in its lyrics to tap into universal angst—anyone who’s ever felt rage or alienation will find something to latch onto here. Yet the source of Buswa’s fire is abundantly clear, rooted in her Anishinaabe experience. It’s a post-punk storm that’s heavy, cathartic, and impossible to shake.
Essential listening, and an easy, early pick as one of the best records of the year.
