Ya Tseen: Stand on My Shoulders

"Ya Tseen's Stand on My Shoulders sounds like waking up disoriented in someone else's dream-voices drift in and out, shifting between languages, and the psych-rock haze never quite resolves into clarity. This is Nicholas Galanin's design. Led by the multidisciplinary Tlingit/Unangax̂ artist, the album's sound diffuses like smoke slipping through the grasp. Words on love and politics are whispered and rapped in English, Spanish, Yupik, and Tlingit, and a cast of guest vocalists rotate in and out, yet the mood never breaks."

"Where Ya Tseen's first album, Indian Yard, bore more pop and R&B influence-echoing with subdued drums and sultry vocals from serpentwithfeet and Kelela- Stand on My Shoulders commits to a uniform mid-tempo pulse. If it runs the risk of becoming background ambiance for listeners seeking Indigenous art without confrontation, its refusal to generate rhythmic catharsis can also be read as an argument for sustained reflection."

"In Galanin's mercifully direct lyrics, Native dream psychology layers over intimate portrayals of kinship. The driving rock guitars and layered vocal textures recall TV on the Radio's experimentation, and Galanin shares certain vocal and political affinities with Moses Sumney. But where Sumney's work finds refusal in queer aromantic isolation, Galanin employs kinship-particularly romance-as a bulwark against the settler state."

Stand on My Shoulders creates a drifting, dreamlike soundscape where voices shift between English, Spanish, Yupik, and Tlingit amid a persistent psych‑rock haze. The album favors a uniform mid‑tempo pulse and layered vocal textures, with guest singers appearing throughout while the mood remains unbroken. Lyrics combine direct political statements with Native dream psychology and intimate portrayals of kinship, using romance and familial ties as strategies of survival and resistance. The record trades pop and R&B influences of earlier work for sustained reflection, and the track “Dei Kee Tla Tin” foregrounds a recording of the artist's father over sparse guitar and harmonies.

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