Black Belt Eagle Scout Continues To Bring A Queer Indigenous Experience To Music

BLACK BELT EAGLE SCOUT
At The Party With My Brown Friends
(Saddle Creek)

At The Party With My Brown Friends is Black Belt Eagle Scout’s (aka Katherine Paul’s) celebration of love, desire, and friendship. While her 2018 debut, Mother of My Children, dealt with the self-described radical indigenous queer feminist’s experiences with coming out and loss through musical distortion, here, she explores connections through gentle strums and soaring choruses. Amongst the nine tracks, she finds acceptance and self-discovery through long drives (“Going To The Beach With Haley”) and two-toned hair (“Half Colored Hair”). Most moving is album closer “You’re Me and I’m You”—a love note to her mom’s unconditional love that, percussively, pays tribute to her Swinomish roots. (4/5)

By Shannon Carlin

At The Party With My Brown Friends was realeased August 30, 2019. This article originally appeared in the September/October 2019 print edition of BUST Magazine. Subscribe today!

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