Month: October 2015

Dezeray Lyn interviews Khaden Adnam, Palestinian resister

Dezeray Lyn just returned from Palestine where she was working as an international observer, activist, and author. She defended Palestinian families’ homes scheduled to be demolished, assisted with the olive harvest, documented human rights abuses, and witnessed the atrocities and the ongoing Israeli occupation.

Khader Adnan, a baker with a degree in Mathematical economics currently working towards his master degree in Israeli studies in Al Quds University, father and a former captive of Israeli occupation prisons has brought himself to the brink of death by starvation twice in protestation of the illegal system of jailing of occupied Palestinians termed Administrative Detention.

During this trip, Dezeray sat down and spoke with Adnan, one of Palestine’s heroes. Her piece clearly defines what ongoing resistance IS. Read the entire article: “Portrait with Fire: Khader Adnan”.

From the Deep Green Resistance book: “A culture of resistance exists to encourage and promote organized political resistance, nurturing the will to fight. It helps people break their psychological identification with the oppressive system and create a new identity based on self-respect and solidarity. It offers the emotional support of a functioning community that believes in resistance as well as an intellectually vibrant atmosphere that encourages analysis, discussion, and the development of political consciousness. It produces cultural products like poems, songs, and art organized around the theme of resistance. It builds the new institutions that will take over as the corrupt ones come down. And it provides loyalty and material support to the aboveground frontline resisters and political prisoners.”

Soom T’s “Bullets Over Babylon” Album: Tribute to Resistance

HouseofReggae.de  

Dubstep, Reggaeton and Electronique Gives Voice to Culture

Soom T (Sumati Bhardwaj) is an Indo-Scot from Glasgow who is known for her musical melange of DubStep, Hip Hop, Electronique, Reggae and Reggaeton. She’s created her own distinctive style and genre to accompany her eclectic, poetic, socio-political lyrics and versatile vocals. She also adds in other modern and world influences with her music. The genre is called several different names and hard to reduce to one label, but one that fits accurately is “Digital Laptop Reggae.”

Even more unique about her lyrics and sound are all the other musical acts she has collaborated with. Her writing, producing, recording and worldwide touring schedule is constant and rigorous and her global fan base is already huge and still growing. She is probably one of the hardest working women in the music industry in Europe and has produced more than 50 releases since 1999. She currently is signed to Renegade Masters.

MySpace.com

To get the music out, Soom T uses all the tools in the toolbox. She is online everywhere, with uploaded videos, sound bytes, photos and a presence on viral sites such as YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Spotify, Last.fm, Bandcamp, Soundcloud and more. Her upcoming recording, “Free as a Bird” is due to be released on November 13th, 2015.

“Bullets Over Babylon” was recorded as a collaboration and produced by Monkey Marc, released on April 20th, 2015. This album surprises with lush instrumentation and dedicated lyrics, multi-layered synth, keyboards and electronique. No two tracks sound the same:

  1. “Aliens in Jars” — driving rhythm, looped drums, electronique, rapped lyrics, special effects with the vocals, reverbed keyboards.
  2. “Bullshit” — world rhythms in the intro, rapped angry socio-political lyrics, lots of instrumentation, synth.
  3. “Complex Simplicity” with MC Karma — Far East sounding strings and chord progressions, MC Karma rapping lyrics, chorus done by Soom T, yearning and melodic vocals, world music sound, some vocal parts sound Middle Eastern. Another standout track.
  4. “Drill”
  5. “Boom”
  6. “Slave” — darkness, slow, minor keys, rhythmic, synth and special effects, jazzy vocals.
  7. “Rebellion” with Combat Wombat — rapped lyrics, electronica, mix of dubstep and reggaeton, layered vocal riffs.
  8. “Under the Bubble” — organ/keyboards intro and throughout, rapped and sung lyrics
  9. “Sick of it All” — spoken intro, rapped lyrics about corporatism and resistance, great special effects, vocals about the corporate culture.
  10. “Storms Come” with Marina P and Solo Banton– slow rapped reggae by Solo Banton, dancehall rhythms, Soom T’s lyrics are soft and beautiful used in the chorus and as a backdrop for Marina P’s soul voice in the verses. Outro with the sound of rain and thunder. Definitely a standout track! This writer’s favorite.
Review by Anita Stewart of Deep Green Resistance Florida, originally published at Rock at Night.

DGR members harassed at US / Canada border

Adam Federman wrote last summer about FBI harassment of Deep Green Resistance members, and now follows up on an incident last week, in which three DGR members were held for hours trying to get into Canada, turned back, and then held for several more hours before finally being allowed back into the US. Border crossing agents interrogated the DGR members, and took their computers out of sight for hours – presumably searching them for any useful data, and possibly installing malware to permanently compromise them.

Following on the rash of FBI contacts, this seems more than coincidental. Though annoying, it’s mostly harmless, at least for now. It’s important to remain aware of the risks of targeting by federal and state officials in various roles, to be ready for legal defense if necessary, and to prepare carefully for situations such as border crossings where activists are particularly vulnerable. This incident validates the need for a firewall between aboveground activists and any hypothetical underground: those of us who make ourselves public in our opposition to power will be targeted and scrutinized. Only those who stay off the radar can carry out illegal actions with a reasonable level of safety.

Read about the latest incident: Deep Green Resistance activists interrogated at US-Canada border