Captain Ska: Liar Liar

Captain Ska recorded this tune in 2010 and it hit the British charts by the end of that year. Unfortunately the government keeps ruthlessly hacking away jobs, damaging vulnerable lives and chipping away at the very fabric of society. So this still remains a very necessary tune.

“I’ve never much been into politics before, but the spending cuts are going to really hit millions of people who did nothing to cause this recession, and Ska can be the soundtrack for the campaign, just as two-tone was one of the few good things to come from the 1980s – the last time we had a government that did so much to rip the country apart.” – Captain SKA

Go check anti-cuts site falseeconomy.co.uk.

By The Time I Get To Arizona

DJ Spooky meets Chuck D for an update of D’s classic track By The Time I get To Arizona.

By the time I get to Arizona

Indigenous Resistance Dubcast

We discovered this one through Exile On Moan Street (a blog very much worth checking out). It’s a podcast called “IR 18.3 Atenco”. The “IR” being short for Indigenous Resistance, and Atenco being a classic indigenous land rights struggle in Mexico, you can already feel this one coming.

This issue 18.3 of the podcast combines the land struggles with autonomous resistance (“the land is not for sale”), the Zapatistas with Asian Dub Foundation and mixes it with loads of great music. What you get is a speech fragments, ideas flying back and forward in the digital domain and lots of dub and dubversive music.

A serious message and some wonderfull music. Nice one!

Download it from Dubreality’s Podcast where you can also find all the info you need (plus a playlist). And don’t forget: be reasonable, demand the impossible!

Dub for rights and papers

Dubamix has a new dub online. Once again he’s mixing the best of politics with the beauty of dub, this time denouncing today’s migration politics and supporting the struggles of the sans-papiers. We like the statement and we love the dub. What more can we ask for? Perhaps papers for all sans-papiers?

Listen and download this dub for free.

Dubamix is also planning on touring in 2010, bringing his militant dub to stages in France (and perhaps abroad?). You can support him with a donation or by buying the “Mix a Dub” cd.

Dubamix brings militant dub

This one’s a strange affair. What do you think would happen if you took your inspiration from yesterday’s roots reggae, today’s electro dub and classic composers like Haydn, Bach or Dvorak? And if you added those influences to your love for dub (musically) and anarchism (politically)? Well, then you might get something like “Mix A Dub”, the first album of Parisien Dubamix.

Dubamix started out in 2003 as a dubspace where musical and political resistance could meet in a true dub spirit. The music defies borders, letting different musical traditions get into a whole new dialogue. In a song like “Haydub” you can start guessing what would happen if Haydn were born on Jamaica. “Tango” mixes tango music with dub and the voice of Leo Ferré. In “Dvordub” you can hear a symphonic orchestra playing. In “Balkan” there’s french chanson and drum’n'bass. “Rap in Dub” then goes deep into hiphop and jungle territories where Dubamix meets Public Enemy. And so on.

Sometimes we think it’s all a bit too much for one record, but most of the time we get surprised by the originality of the ideas and the music. And of course we’re also pleased to hear the leftwing anarchist stance that Dubamix tries to make. There’s even a whole explanation why Dubamix is nòt an myspace.

You can download this 15 track album for free from the site or support Dubamix by buying the cd for a very reasonable 6 euro.