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STATUS/NON STATUS — LIVE AT SONIC HALL!Are we there yet? More specifically, are you there yet? There being the inflection point where the urge to recede into the blissful innocence of youth is in a constant tug of war with the inescapable pull of conscious adulthood. Where the joys of June and July descend into the autumnal weight of August and September. Are you at the point where you look around at the chaos and confusion swirling through our collective psyche and say, “It can’t get any worse than this,” or do you think, “This too shall pass”? Are you ready for Big Changes? Because Adam Sturgeon is. Over the years, Anishinaabe musician and artist Sturgeon has undergone a metamorphosis, shedding old monikers and reclaiming heritage. In 2021, the collective formerly known as WHOOP-Szo became Status/Non-Status as part of Sturgeon’s ongoing exploration of the complex roots of his family history. Together with Zoon’s Daniel Monkman (who makes a guest appearance on Big Changes), Sturgeon introduced the world to OMBIIGIZI in 2022 via their Polaris-shortlisted record Sewn Back Together. Regardless of which project Sturgeon is working on, though, the one thing that doesn’t change is how he treats it: like family, protecting it at all costs. Every reinvention, every reckoning, every return leads back to the same role: provider, protector, father. Big Changes (out March 6, 2026 on You've Changed Records) comes from living through what Sturgeon describes as “a war on people and their ways of being” while engaging in the everyday domesticity of dropping the kids off at daycare, heading into work, doing chores around the house, and figuring out how to survive “what is beginning to feel like a real apocalypse.” Inspired by his in-the-moment work with OMBIIGIZI, and with over 40 rough song ideas on hand, Sturgeon recruited Dean Nelson (Beck, Thurston Moore, Stephen Malkmus & the Jicks) and Matthew Wiewel (of Deadpan Studios and engineer of Status/Non-Status’ previous album, Surely Travel) to build a home studio in the old church he lives in with his family in London, Ontario. Everything on Big Changes “Is centralized around our Monday morning recording sessions,” he says, “and this routine of caring for my young family in a disintegrating and tough city.” For Sturgeon, Big Changes also reflects his lifelong dialogue with duality, a dichotomy “…felt through the contrast of being a mixed person,” who sees “racism perpetuated against people more visible than myself, while also not feeling like I’m Indian enough.” The record tussles with that uneasy and impossible balance of simultaneously walking in two worlds with conflicting values. It’s less a statement of intent than a lived reflection, one that acknowledges tension without resolving it. “I don’t feel conflicted about where I stand, but I’m not sure I’m always seen,” Sturgeon says, adding that, “[on Sewn Back Together, OMBIIGIZI] found balance in the dichotomy of being damaged and using it as a tool to move forward. Big Changes, however, is foreboding and inquisitive about what is to come.” Despite its title, one thing that Big Changes doesn’t mess with is the music. Status/Non-Status hold fast to their intuitive and fluid style, their musicianship grounded in connection, familiarity, and an overarching trust in the power of their glorious noise. If anything, Status/Non-Status is more refined on Big Changes, summoning a sound that’s deliberate while retaining the untamed energy that first inspired them. Big Changes is about survival, but also about making connections in order to endure. It is the big noise we make together when the world feels like it’s falling apart, and the harmony that comes when we keep time with one another.
$15 + FEES in ADVANCE
19+ | LICENSED | DOORS at 7PM
TICKETS: https://www.tixr.com/e/177660
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Event Venue
12 Wyndham St, Guelph, ON, Canada, Ontario
Tickets
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