If you were to map Lancelot Knight onto a cultural grid, he’d exist at the edges. Artists spend careers trying to find their niche, while Knight seems more interested in the search. The son of Juno-winning singer-songwriter Chester Knight, Lancelot spent his youth ignoring the family business by way of a basketball court (he is 6’7”). Eventually, fate (or, more specifically, a debilitating hip condition) engineered a trade of athletic dreams for the life of a troubadour.

Whether fronting a rock band or performing solo, there is a theme of restlessness in his music. The sound is a collision of ’90s rock, folk, and the isolation of the Prairies. It is music that feels physically grounded yet spiritually uneven. His voice is burnished with a grit that sounds earned, not affected. Knight echoes the Saskatchewan landscape — harsh, beautiful, complex. He is part of modern Indigenous music that may eschew tradition, yet retains the power of the story. And, as it turns out, the guitar is a more effective tool for trying to comprehend this weird world than a basketball ever was.

- Jay Nelson