Funeral Lakes

Funeral Lakes is Chris Hemer (he/him) and Sam Mishos (she/they). They are currently based out of Kingston, Ontario, a small city where the St. Lawrence and Cataraqui rivers meet, on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario.

Their sophomore album North American Martyrs will be released on April 5, 2024. North American Martyrs is about reckoning with nationalism, history, and settler identity in Canada. The album is the result of a thesis project (The Making of Martyrs: Musicians, Mythmaking, and Counter-Discourse) that interrogated the role of cultural production in sustaining Canadian national myths through a case study of Gordon Lightfoot’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” The album attempts to show how cultural production can cut both ways—music can exist in a tension as both a tool for nationalist socialization and a medium for counter-discourse. A key inspiration was the work of Canadian historian Daniel Francis, who explains, “Myths organize the past into a coherent story, the story of Canada, which simplifies the complex ebb and flow of events and weaves together the disparate thread of experience. Myths are echoes of the past, resonating in the present.”

Each song seeks to unsettle glorified narratives about Canadian history by highlighting their purposeful omissions. The album’s title track references the Jesuit missionaries who came to be known as the North American Martyrs, but it is not a celebration in the least—it is a reframing that presents these individuals as a sinister force who descended upon these lands as an extension of the broader colonial nightmare. However, the album’s title is intended to be more encompassing: all the so-called heroes, events, and topics covered throughout the album (the North-West Mounted Police, the railway, WWI, among others) are argued to be glorified through dominant narratives, akin to the concept of ‘martyrdom’ or celebration after one’s death. The album’s title reflects the notion of individuals seeking legacy through their ‘deeds,’ as well as the cultural producers who reimagine their legacies for new audiences as time passes. Through commemoration (for example, through statues, monuments, place names, anniversaries, songs, and stories) an individual can become transformed into a symbol or something to live up to—a hero for us to hoist aloft above any doubt or criticism. This mythical status can prevent meaningful and necessary discourse around the realities and nuances of an individual’s life, death, and legacy. The album seeks to unravel myth and memory in the past and present.

North American Martyrs was performed, produced, and recorded by Chris Hemer and Sam Mishos in Kingston, Ontario, with additional engineering, drums, and vocals provided by Arden Rogalsky, and bass guitar, upright bass, and vocals provided by Michael Broadhead. The album was mixed by Jonas Bonnetta (Port William Sound) and mastered by Heather Kirby (Dreamlands Mastering).