For International Working Women’s Day 2016, the Berlin-based and female-centric artist network female:pressure has curated a new compilation of music from rising female electronic musicians called Music, Awareness & Solidarity w/ Rojava Revolution. The 12 track release is a result of the network’s Open Call for Submissions — the entire project was birthed during a span of 3 months from inception to completion.
I can’t distill this incredibly complex political issue into a few sentences, and I certainly can’t express it more poignantly than these ladies’ music, so I recommend you read this article from the New York Times as background. Rojava is a Kurdish region in Syria run by heavily armed socialist-feminists, a location “where women participate on all levels of decision making and building a new society from scratch, with built-in social, racial and ethnic justice, religious freedom, ecological principles and gender equality.”
Each track is made by a different artist, giving the album great variation of vibes. The compilation is overall a sonically explosive instance of women acting in collectivity, and is accompanied by the following note:
female:pressure‘s #Rojava compilation is an excellent instance of music functioning as a political lightning, and, more importantly, a really engaging collection of tracks. The first track features singing from musician and poet Viyan Peyman, an activist killed while fighting against Daesh (ISIS). Other musicians, such as Olivia Louvel, address the subject using BBC news clips of women fighting back. This is undoubtedly a very intense album, yet there are moments where the music gets properly groovy: take, for example, Ipek Ipekcioglu‘s serpentine beat that samples classical Indian, or Zoë McPherson’s drum-driven microbeats that would not sound out of place in an anarchist street race. What each song has in common is an electric undercurrent of frustration and political unrest, manifest in steely electronic compositions.
Music, Awareness & Solidarity w/ Rojava Revolution is a varied and subversive collection of music by women who powerfully harness art as a political catalyst. female:pressure has synthesized a potent collection of sounds in solidarity with #Rojava. You can download the entire album on bandcamp. The proceeds from the album will go to the women of Rojova! Please consider donating to the cause if you are in the financial position to do so.
