KHEW News Staff | As of Oct. 14, 2026
Blackfeet music from Browning, Montana, has a new home. Firekeeper Alliance, a Browning nonprofit, has started Firekeeper Alliance Records, and its first release is a live album from the Blackfeet doom duo Pōnōkǎ.
The record, Pōnōkǎ Live at Fire in the Mountains, came out Friday, Aug. 28 on the label’s Bandcamp page. The label says the set was the band’s first show ever, played at the Fire in the Mountains festival, and calls the pair “two exceptional dudes making brutally heavy music on the Blackfeet Nation.” It describes their sound as “post colonial apocalyptic doom.”
Blackfeet music with a studio in mind
Firekeeper Alliance works on mental health in Browning, and the group says music has always been part of that mission because it builds community, identity and belonging. Its long term plan is a headquarters in Browning with subsidized counseling on one side of the hall and a recording studio on the other.
The group says the studio would double as a classroom where young people can learn recording, engineering, production, songwriting, photography, film, design and promotion. “We’re not particularly interested in building a traditional record label,” the announcement says. “We want to build infrastructure for creativity in Indian Country.”
What Hi-Line listeners should know
Browning is a few hours west of Rocky Boy on U.S. 2, and the idea of a reservation based label with its own studio is worth watching for Native musicians all along the Hi-Line. The label says it wants to take chances on heavy, experimental and independent artists and especially create more chances for Indigenous musicians.
You can hear the Pōnōkǎ album at firekeeperalliancerecords.bandcamp.com. The group can be reached at info@firekeeperalliance.org.
Sources: Firekeeper Alliance, “Firekeeper Alliance Records”; Firekeeper Alliance Records on Bandcamp
