A long-time paragon of rugged Canadian roots-rock, Tom Wilson has focused much of his creative energy since the mid-2010s on exploring his Mohawk heritage—an identity he didn’t discover about himself until he was in his fifties. That soul-searching process spawned his best-selling 2017 memoir (and spin-off documentary), Beautiful Scars, and his 2019 Juno-winning album, Mohawk, under his nom de folk, Lee Harvey Osmond—and it’s also led to a fruitful friendship-turned-collaboration with Cree Métis alt-rocker and fellow Hamilton, Ontario, resident iskwē. What began as a one-off invitation to do a live duet in early 2020 has now spawned a full-length summit: Mother Love sees the duo stake their common ground on a foundation of desert-blues grooves, dusty folk rock, and gospel-schooled stomping, with producer Serena Ryder serving as their Lanois-esque conduit between the earth and the stars. Despite their different musical aesthetics, the two are natural singing partners: On a reworking of Wilson’s “Blue Moon Drive,” iskwē is the radiant high-beam cutting through his foggy growl, while the Route 66 rambler “Long Way Down” melds their divergent voices like a sweet ’n’ salty confection. But with the elegant soul ballad “Starless Nights,” Wilson gladly steps aside to whisper in the shadows as iskwē’s gale-force vocals hurtle the song into the heavens.