Dead Feather Begins a Four-Album Audio Sculpture With Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1
Dead Feather Turns Psychedelic Rock Into Mvskoke-Creek Cultural Reclamation
Joshua Garrett records as Dead Feather. On Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1, the deaf, multi-disciplinary Mvskoke-Creek artist treats psychedelic rock as ceremony rather than product. The album came out on 22 July 2025 and has streamed ever since. It opens a planned four-part audio sculpture that scores the Dead Feather Concept. Across that frame, Garrett channels the raw energy of 80s and 90s alternative rock into themes of cultural reclamation and Mvskoke-Creek identity.
You can listen to our full playlist which contains the artist’s music, and know more about the artist’s work by scrolling down the page.
Psychedelic Rock Meets the Raw Energy of 80s and 90s Alternative Rock on Dead Feather’s First Volume
Dead Feather works in a strain of psychedelic rock with two clear roots. One is the distortion and drive of 80s and 90s alternative rock. The other is the genre’s older, hazier tradition. Garrett describes the project as an audio sculpture, and the phrase fits. Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 reads less as a run of singles than as one carved object, meant to be heard whole.
That framing asks something of the listener. A typical rock record front-loads its catchiest moment. This album instead builds toward a larger structure, the first panel of a four-part work. The psychedelic rock here works as a vehicle for meaning, and the reverb and weight serve the story rather than decorate it.
For a US audience raised on alternative rock, the entry point stays familiar even when the destination is not. Even so, the guitars land with the grit listeners expect from the 80s and 90s. Garrett then uses that familiar language to pull people toward a story they may never have met inside a rock record.
Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 Opens a Planned Four-Album Audio Sculpture
The title pairs the Mvskoke phrase Cate Heleswv with its English rendering, Red Medicine, and that doubling is the point. This is volume one of four. Each album works as one movement of the overarching Dead Feather Concept. Garrett is not releasing a single and hoping it travels; he is laying the foundation stone of a much larger build.
That ambition reframes how Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 should be heard. Cultural reclamation runs through the writing. Garrett uses psychedelic rock to reclaim and retell Mvskoke-Creek identity on his own terms. The record challenges assimilation directly, and it speaks in the language of a rock tradition that US listeners already trust.
IndieRock.News curator team: “What keeps pulling us back to Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 is the nerve to treat a rock album as architecture, building one wing of a four-part structure instead of chasing a quick single. Garrett writes from inside a tradition most rock records never touch, and the psychedelic haze never once softens the message.”
A Deaf Multi-Disciplinary Mvskoke-Creek Artist Whose Documentary Ehute Vpohyuke (Homesick) Won Best Documentary Short
Dead Feather is only one channel for Joshua Garrett. He is a deaf, multi-disciplinary Mvskoke-Creek artist who moves between music, poetry and painting. That range matters to the record. Garrett approaches Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 the way a painter approaches a series, thinking in panels and recurring motifs rather than isolated tracks.
His work outside music gives the project real critical weight. Garrett is the artist behind the award-winning short documentary Ehute Vpohyuke (Homesick), which took Best Documentary Short at the Barebones Film Festival. The themes driving Dead Feather are resilience, cultural reclamation and Mvskoke-Creek identity. As a result, they reach audiences well beyond music.
The singles leading into the project have already drawn rock-press attention. It’s All Indie called American Dreams a hard-hitting anthem built on 80s and 90s influences. Illustrate Magazine read Red Poem as spoken word fused with rock instrumentation. Karl is My Unkle traced the Mvskoke mythology running through the wider album.
“This first volume, released nearly a year ago, was a crucial step in bringing the Dead Feather Concept to life, blending my musical influences with the rich tapestry of my Mvskoke-Creek heritage,” said Joshua Garrett, the artist behind Dead Feather.
Who This Mvskoke-Creek Psychedelic Rock Record Is Really For, From Jimi Hendrix Fans to Neil Young Devotees
If you keep the dynamic sounds of 80s rock, 90s rock and alternative rock in heavy rotation, Dead Feather speaks your language. Listeners who treat Jimi Hendrix as the root of psychedelic rock will know the restless, blues-soaked electricity at work here. Garrett bends that same guitar language toward a Mvskoke-Creek story rather than a retro one.
The record then carries it into rougher territory. Anyone who leans on Neil Young for his ragged, distorted playing will find a kindred sense of purpose. Like Young, Garrett lets the rough edges stand because the message needs them. The 80s and 90s alternative rock backbone will also land for fans of R.E.M., a band that wove identity and conscience into its catalogue much as Garrett does here.
What unites them is intent. Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 rewards people who treat albums as statements rather than playlists. It is psychedelic rock that wants to carry real weight.
Where to Stream Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 and Follow Dead Feather Online
The full Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 playlist streams on YouTube, the most direct way into the album as Garrett sequenced it. You can also hear Dead Feather on Bandcamp and SoundCloud.
To follow the wider Dead Feather Concept as the next volumes arrive, keep up with Garrett on his YouTube channel and Instagram. You can also read more about his multi-disciplinary practice at his official site. Start with volume one, and let Cate Heleswv (Red Medicine) Vol. 1 set the terms for the three records still to come.
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