Category: Fundraiser

Announcing a New Antifascist Neofolk Compilation to Raise Money for Black Lives Matter Arrestees

We are happy to collaborate for a project from the Left/Folk collective, pulling together antiracist and radical neofolk musicians in a project to raise money for the Black Lives Matter National Bail Fund. You can buy the album directly on Bandcamp or you can send over your receipt for a donation directly to the National Bail Fund.

IN SOLIDARITY: Songs of Struggle and Liberation puts together a motley crew of Left/Folk (antifascist neofolk) artists from across the Americas and across the ocean for a great cause. This compilation of songs, curated by the Left/Folk collective in collaboration with A Blaze Ansuz, is a showcase of artists working within the post-industrial/neofolk aural tradition without compromise to apolitical and far-right influences within the neofolk scene. The music on this compilation ranges from lyrically driven folk to mythic and cinematic instrumental pieces, always bridging the gap between these forms of music and a wide range of leftist political traditions. The artists on this compilation are uncompromising in their political ideals and their creative integrity. These are folk songs for the struggles we face in 2020, a logical evolution of protest folk music merging with post-industrial music culture. With artwork featuring images of abolitionist John Brown and symbols of militant international cooperation, this compilation is a signal to those who are navigating the complicated musical landscape of this era that another world is possible… a world that is willing to face injustice and push back against the sociopolitical corruption that is coagulating into fascist movements across the planet.

The time is now, not later, as the social clock marches toward midnight… the light of liberty grows ever dimmer. Left/Folk is a call to action and an establishment of an alternative future, through contextualizing the past and identifying the present. If you are reading this, it is likely that you are aware that neofolk has a long and sordid history of far-right implication, complacency, and infiltration. Left/Folk seeks to change this paradigm, to shift both perception and intention in a direction devoid of such elements. Left/Folk is in many ways, a logical synonym to antifascist neofolk. It is a pointed identifier, that divorces the pursuit of neofolk from the baggage of neofolk, without ignoring the cultural history or purging the music of its own aural character or revolutionary potential.

The Left/Folk collective recognizes this in the context of what we are seeing as a growing chaos in the streets, and an amplified show of force by the State that feeds off this polarization. As society in the US is in freefall, as protesters and press are beaten and arrested in the streets, as the people cry out for justice, it is becoming clearer and clearer that to be inactive is to be complacent. Folk music has long been a vehicle for political ideas, for change, for affirmation, for action. In 2020, we are faced with the necessity to act, in any capacity, even if many people are relegated to distanced, quarantined measures of mutual aid. Violence in the streets, repression in our communities, and continuous acts of protest are all part of the political atmosphere. Art must reflect this brutal reality; it is no longer time for pretending it is not there. Until we exist in an equitable society, until it is truly established that Black Lives Matter, and that we refuse to live in a police state.

Proceeds of this compilation will go towards The National Bail Fund Network in support of Black Lives Matter and ongoing protests in the struggle against systemic racism and State repression. When members of the press and citizens practicing their rights are targeted by the police, beaten and arrested in droves, we cannot stand by in silence. The National Bail Fund Network is a national project that works with organizers, advocates, and legal providers across the country that are using, or contemplating using, community bail funds as part of efforts to radically change local bail systems and reduce incarceration.

 IN SOLIDARITY: Songs of Struggle and Liberation becomes available at midnight, officially, October 2nd via leftfolk.bandcamp.com for #bandcampfriday

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Metal Raises Money for Abortion Access with ‘Riffs for Reproductive Justice’

After the recent attacks on women’s reproductive rights in several red states, and the potential for a full-scale SCOTUS assault on Roe vs. Wade, fundraising for abortion access has become a key priority and bands across the country are standing up in support. On a recent tour with Dawn Ray’d and Dead to a Dying World, they gave free t-shirts to people who gave monthly donations to reproductive access.

Now a new compilation has come together, organized by former Noisey resident metal-head Kim Kelly, and is intent on raising money for the National Network of Abortion Funds and the Yellow Fund, which fund abortions and do organizing in Alabama. The “Riffs for Reproductive Justice” compilation is for sale at Bandcamp and brings together a massive list of metal and hardcore bands who are putting themselves out there to raise money to ensure that low-income people in the most affected states still have access to healthcare.

Abortion clinics across the country are being forced to close, robbing people of the ability to access crucial healthcare services. A theocratic fascist regime is working overtime to control the bodies of those who have uteruses, to force us into unwanted pregnancies, to wrest away our human rights. We cannot stand by and let this happen. All of us—people of every gender, with every kind of body—need to fight back against this horrifying attack on bodily autonomy, by any means necessary. This compilation is just one small effort made by a few dozen people who care, who are intimately affected by this, and who love other people who are afraid of what the future will bring.

The compilation has thirty-three tracks, including songs by Ancst, Axebreaker, Dawn Ray’d, Deafest, Tbou, Jucifer, Twilight Fauna, and others.

“So it’s our honor to be part of this effort in the pivotal fight we again face to defend reproductive freedoms which politicians and religious extremists in our home country seek to demolish,” said Gazelle Amber, of Jucifer. “If legislators won’t do their job and represent the overwhelming public demand to keep abortion and birth control legal and accessible, we have to take care of each other. Never forget that we are more numerous than those who aim to control us. The object of power is power.”

You can get your compilation here, and they are asking for at least $5 to purchase the album, but you are welcome to donate more since 100% of the proceeds will go to the organizations supporting safe abortion access.