“Knife River” by Val Son – A Song Feature

     The beginning of “Knife River” features beautiful, calming vocals that evoke a celestial feel and a contradicting sense of foreboding. The accompanying seesaw notes from the keys and the pulsing guitar that soon joins are clearly more aligned with concern than with anything spiritual in nature. But nothing foreshadows the burst that occurs one-minute into “Knife River,” when the rhythm section leads a song transformation. The tempo jumps and the instruments paint soundscapes with Western-like and Shoegaze-ready guitar.

     We freely admit to needing an education of the history of the Knife area of North Dakota in order to appreciate the message of Val Son, a band based in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1837, a series of smallpox outbreaks wiped out a majority of Native Americans living in the area. Many of the sources we read did not touch upon whether the outbreak was intentionally introduced, but others left no doubt that it was.

      The press content regarding the single from Val Son explains:

  “Knife River,” the band’s first single of 2020, at first positions the listener between two images: a mesa, emblematic of the beauty of the western landscape, and a community of people resisting the violence of colonization. As a musical group comprised of white members, the song reflects on what happens when specific narratives are left out of public discourse. How do we move forward when, as modern day colonizers, we refuse to acknowledge that our bootstraps are soaked in blood? The song states, “I will remember Knife River.” The question that follows is, how? Are we thinking critically about the space we take up in conversations, in our communities, but more broadly as Minnesotans? Do we understand what it means to occupy stolen land? 

     The members of Val Son are Mike Gunvalson (drums), Emily Mohrbacher (vocals, guitar), Jordan Taylor (bass, keys), and Eric Carlson (guitar, keys, mixing). “Knife River” is the first single from their upcoming album “Rivers Eternal.”

     “Knife River” by Val Son

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/valsonband/

Bandcamp: https://valson.bandcamp.com/