Montreal-based Indigenous artist Siibii and Juno Award winner Aysanabee be part of forces on the achingly lovely “Physique to Physique” – a wide ranging, soul-soaked anthem that reclaims intimacy as sacred, celebrates love as drugs, and turns closeness into an act of therapeutic, empowerment, and resistance.
Stream: “Physique to Physique” – Siibii ft. Aysanabee
This track strikes like a sluggish heartbeat for me – an ode to the sacred assembly of pores and skin, breath, and spirit, the place contact turns into drugs and closeness turns into a sort of therapeutic.
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Tright here is energy in contact – within the closeness of pores and skin in opposition to pores and skin, the intimacy of breath in opposition to breath.
For Siibii, a queer, trans, non-binary, Montreal-based Indigenous artist, that closeness is greater than affection: It’s an act of reclamation, a defiance of colonial techniques that after sought to sever Indigenous peoples from their our bodies, their pleasure, and their energy. “Physique to Physique,” their soul-stirring new duet with Juno Award winner Aysanabee, pulses with this spirit of therapeutic. It’s a track of radical intimacy – of connection as drugs, of affection as resistance.
I ache on this power
Oh what you do to me
Blood speeding to my cheeks
I really feel you in each beat
Your love is drugs
Every time I allow you to in
Your touches is therapeutic me
Your contact is what’s I would like
Atwood Journal is proud to be premiering “Physique to Physique,” a surprising soul-soaked anthem full warmth, human depth, and the sort of depth that happens solely after we are at our most weak, visceral, and uncooked. Out as we speak, September 17, through Ishkode Data, the observe arrives as each a love track and a press release of reclamation – elegant and transferring, a ballad-cum-anthem that builds from shiver-inducing piano chords right into a dramatic flood of heat, surprise, and launch. Directed by Vera Oh, its accompanying music video locations us face-to-face with each artists and their band, whereas capturing tender vignettes of intimacy and pleasure between actors Manu and Maryam. From playful procuring cart rides and goofy embraces on a basketball court docket, to quiet moments of holding each other on prepare tracks, the video underscores the sacredness of closeness on the coronary heart of the track.
“Colonization, via the enforcement of residential colleges and the imposition of Christian doctrine, disrupted Indigenous household and societal constructions – shaming intimacy, demonizing sexuality, and severing generations from their very own our bodies and relationships,” Siibii tells Atwood Journal. “This track exists in direct defiance of these imposed ideologies, reclaiming contact, love, and bodily connection as pure, sacred, and therapeutic.”
The track begins in a hush of vulnerability: Siibii’s voice, delicate but commanding, rides on a mattress of shiny piano chords that really feel like the primary sparks of sunshine in a darkened room. There’s an intimacy to these opening moments – a way of being drawn shut, of secrets and techniques whispered at arm’s size – and because the verse unfolds, the strain mounts in tandem with their phrases. “Your love is drugs / Every time I allow you to in / Your contact is therapeutic me / Your contact is what I would like” lands with breathtaking conviction, the primary refrain erupting as each a launch and a revelation:
Nose to nose
Pores and skin to pores and skin
Physique to physique
You’re my drugs
My drugs
The refrain is easy, however in its simplicity lies its energy. “Nose to nose, pores and skin to pores and skin, physique to physique, you’re my drugs” is a mantra of connection – a reclaiming of contact not as one thing shameful or profane, however as sacred, essential, and profoundly therapeutic. By centering closeness as drugs, Siibii transforms bodily connection into an act of restoration, defiance, and love . It’s the track’s emotional core, the place vulnerability is widely known reasonably than silenced, and the place the load of historical past meets the opportunity of renewal. The repetition itself turns into ritualistic, echoing the very heartbeat Siibii later describes, embodying each the non-public tenderness of a love track and the collective significance of cultural reclamation.
From there, the track expands outward. Drums, guitar, and organ swell beneath Siibii’s voice, making a sonic panorama that’s as cinematic as it’s soul-stirring. It’s on this area that Aysanabee steps ahead, his deep baritone grounding the observe with a heat and gravitas that contrasts – and finally enhances – Siibii’s alto. The place Siibii sounds just like the spark, Aysanabee is the flame, regular and unyielding, carrying the track into deeper emotional waters.
When their voices converge within the second refrain, “Physique to Physique” reaches its true peak – a cathartic eruption of intimacy and power, of ardour laid naked and shared between two artists on the top of their energy. It’s a sonic and emotional climax the place tenderness meets depth, and the complete weight of the track is realized in concord. The impact is electrifying: you’re feeling it in your chest, in your pulse, within the quiet areas the place you retain your individual vulnerabilities. That is the second the place connection turns into not simply therapeutic, however holy.
The earliest spark for “Physique to Physique” was lit throughout Siibii’s first-ever songwriting camp – the Inaugural Indigenous Track Camp introduced by Amazon Music Canada.
Nervous and managing social nervousness, Siibii met Aysanabee on a smoke break, joking that they weren’t writing collectively. Destiny and a last-minute schedule change paired them up, together with artist Sunsetto. What started with an icebreaker train – yelling “vagina” till the phrase misplaced its giggles – quickly blossomed right into a waltz-tempo ballad that will evolve into as we speak’s hovering anthem.
“I’m so joyful this track is lastly popping out, and there’s actually no higher individual than Siibii to launch it. They’re such an unbelievable human who radiates pleasure, and their journey has been something however straightforward,” shares Aysanabee. “I’m all the time in awe of being within the orbit of artists like Siibii. And truthfully, it nonetheless makes me giggle that my very first reminiscence of them is sitting in a room filled with strangers the place we have been requested to scream ‘vagina’ on the high of our lungs. I can solely think about what the songwriters and producers within the rooms subsequent door should have thought.”
Whereas one early recording leaned towards polished pop, Siibii finally returned to the unique waltz’s gentler, much less refined contact. “I wished to create one thing just a little extra intimate and romantic… one thing that felt like drugs,” they replicate. Recording the ultimate model in Montreal at their guitarist and producer’s residence was a celebratory expertise: “We ordered like 40 dumplings and recorded for just a few hours. Aysanabee’s voice is unbelievable, and one of many largest compliments was him saying he was pleased with my vocals. I used to be over there with my jaw on the ground, like this man is ripping it, and he’s complimenting me.”
The result’s a cinematic outpouring of ardour, with Siibii’s spellbinding alto and Aysanabee’s wealthy baritone intertwining in an irresistible call-and-response of affection and longing. Lyrics like “Your love is drugs / Every time I allow you to in / Your contact is therapeutic me / Your contact is what I would like” flip closeness into prayer, and keenness into energy.
I ache for this power
Oh what you do to me
Blood speeding to your cheeks
I really feel you in each beat
This love is drugs
Every time you let me in
Your touches is therapeutic me
Your contact is what’s I would like
With steering from director Vera Oh and the crew, the track’s accompanying music video is a strikingly tender efficiency of intimacy as therapeutic and empowerment.
“To be trustworthy, I used to be freaking nervous,” Siibii admits of filming the video. Having grown accustomed to solo shoots, embodying intimacy alongside an in depth good friend was daunting – compounded by the challenges of being neurodivergent. “It was just a little intense as a result of Aysanabee is my good friend, a homie. I simply needed to get previous that preliminary weirdness and keep in mind we have been right here to make one thing lovely.”
The highly effective visible mirrors the track’s emotional depth: Susceptible but empowering, playful but profound. We see Siibii and Aysanabee performing with their full band (Megan Griffin, Joshua Cunningham, Matt McCormack, Talya Gad, and Jacob Liutkus), their voices rising collectively in moments that really feel virtually ceremonial, contrasted with glimpses of on a regular basis tenderness between actors Manu and Maryam – laughing, kissing, holding each other shut. These parallel storylines weave music and motion right into a single tapestry of connection, reminding us that love lives as a lot within the quiet gestures of care because it does in grand declarations. The video doesn’t simply illustrate the track; it amplifies its spirit, underscoring that intimacy, in all its types, is each lovely and courageous.
For Siibii, the track’s function is crystal clear: “The purpose of the track was primarily to speak about bodily intimacy in a decolonial mindset… to symbolize connection in a manner that isn’t derogatory, however as a substitute seems like drugs. I hope ‘Physique to Physique’ turns into the following massive snagging track. There higher be a thousand extra Native infants being born after its launch.”
Nose to nose
Pores and skin to pores and skin
Physique to physique
You’re my drugs
You’re my drugs
What makes “Physique to Physique” so impactful is how seamlessly it holds each the deeply private and the universally human.
On one stage, it’s a love track – a young change of devotion between two voices, providing themselves as much as each other. However beneath that tenderness lies one thing higher: a reclamation of intimacy itself, and a reminder that connection shouldn’t be solely pure, however sacred. The track’s repetition, its ebb and stream, seems like a grounding ritual – a sonic ceremony that restores what colonization as soon as tried to sever. On this manner, the refrain turns into greater than music; it turns into an affirmation, a therapeutic, and an act of resistance.
As Siibii so superbly places it, “This track strikes like a sluggish heartbeat for me – an ode to the sacred assembly of pores and skin, breath, and spirit, the place contact turns into drugs and closeness turns into a sort of therapeutic.”
Love as therapeutic, intimacy as reclamation, closeness as catharsis: “Physique to Physique” is all of this stuff and extra. It’s a track that insists on the sacredness of contact, reminding us that to like and be beloved is each timeless and revolutionary. That is music to hold into your on a regular basis – to remind you of the wonder in closeness, the ability in tenderness, and the therapeutic we are able to discover in each other. Stream “Physique to Physique” completely on Atwood Journal, and fall in love with the magic Siibii and Aysanabee create when their voices and souls intertwine.
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Stream: “Physique to Physique” – Siibii ft. Aysanabee
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