Other Colours of Noise

Phonode

Phonode is a new website devised by the UE collective. It will focus on the more exploratory fringes of electronic music, demystifying the techniques used by musicians and artists working in the field, reviewing albums and equipment as well as examining the new processes and ideas which drive its creation. As the boundaries between noise and techno blur, disparate scenes seem to cross-pollinate more than ever before, and electronic music returns to a more experimental DIY aesthetic – the time seems ripe to launch a fresh investigation into where electronic music is at, and where it’s going next…

Visit Phonode

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owen jones, cringing in the shadow of margaret thatcher

^^^

I’m usually a fan of Owen Jones’ work. I thought ‘Chavs’ was a good book that said some important things that had gone very much un-said in recent times, where even supposed ‘lefties’ started bashing the lowest echelons of our increasingly stratified society. This post from the Commune raises some good points about his views and positioning however; I can’t help but agree with the author that his misplaced faith in New New (One Nation) Labour will lead a lot of his followers and fans to disappointment.

Nude Egyptian Protests Morsi

Today in Stockholm

Femen are certainly not scared of a little controversy – and neither is anti-islamist Egyptian activist Alia Magda al Mahdi, for that matter.

Alia became famous for publishing a nude photo of herself on her blog about a year ago, describing the act as “screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy”, positioning herself as a “secular, liberal, feminist, vegetarian, individualist Egyptian” and an atheist since turning 16. She was recently denied entry into France where she was to participate in a nude protest by feminist provocateurs, Femen, outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris. The organisation claimed that Alia had been denied entry into the country by “European secret services”, and that “Unknown forces affecting the management of airlines Lufthansa and Scandinavian airlines” had deprived her of the opportunity to travel to the protest – although there seems to be little evidence for such a conspiracy at the moment.

Alia wrote this about the event on her blog four days ago:

“Yesterday, I was going to protest against the Egyptian draft constitution with Femen and other Arab women in front of the Egyptian embassy in Paris.

One day before, Inna Shevchenko booked me a plane ticket from Gutenberg Landvetter Airport to Paris on Lufthansa and paid for it online, but I couldn’t check-in at the airport. The ticket office woman told me that my ticket was canceled because the payment was not completed. I thought it was an error and had another Femen member buy me a ticket for the next flight on Scandinavian Airlines. I got a boarding pass, checked-in, passed airport security and was waiting for my flight. Then, the same woman came to me and told me that she got a warning about me and I have to show her the credit card used to pay for the ticket and it has to be mine or I will not take that flight. I replied that thousands of people travel with tickets paid for by other people everyday, event holders always pay for participants’ travel expenses, I traveled this way three times before on KLM and Ryan Air and the first ticket was also paid for by someone else. She spoke to me in a not nice way, took the boarding pass and told me to collect my luggage. The woman who gave me my luggage removed the sticker that was stuck to it when I checked-in.

I am disappointed that my freedom of expression is also oppressed in Europe.”

Undeterred by this little hiccup, Femen activists travelled to Stockholm to meet Alia and stage a nude protest there instead – outside the Egyptian embassy.

Femen’s ‘press release’ :

“International women’s movement FEMEN and antiislamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt!

Apocalypse of Muhammad

Today in the snowbound Stockholm the world has seen apocalyptic picture. 

International women’s movement FEMEN and antiislamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt! Before the decisive day of the referendum in Egypt activists came to the Embassy of Egypt in Stockholm to support Egyptian heroes who are resisting the sharia-dictatorial draft of the constitution of the president Morsi. FEMEN calls people  of Great Egypt to deny this religious bondage of newly appeared prophet Morsi and to give the chance for Egypt for the rightful democratic development.

“Sharia is not a constitution” – it has been written on Alia’s naked body. Her genitals have been covered by the poster shaped like Koran. The three posters in the hands of activists are the symbolic  religious books. In that way  FEMEN warns the world about the danger of the transformation secular constitution into religious. FEMEN warns muslim brother Morsi, if he gave an orders to shoot at his own people then his last resting will be the Nile with crocodiles, not the pyramids. 

Fuck off religious slavery! Viva freedom and human rights!”

Post on Femen website

Alia al-Mahdi’s Blog

Update: This video of the protest has just been posted by Femen on Vimeo

Why the VICE generation are apocalyptic and frightened

Vice Magazine’s Alex Miller interviews one of Red Eye’s favourite filmmakers, Adam Curtis, in this new piece called Looking Beneath the Waves. In the article Curtis shares some of his latest theories on why the news (in its current guise) is unable to shed any light on the real reasons for the global financial meltdown, why economics is a failed pseudo-science, why a whole generation has grown up to be supremely cynical and paranoid, and the frightening reality of a world in which no-one really knows what’s happening, including both the journalists and politicians that pretend to have all the answers.

A must read.

The 12 Tax Dodgers of Christmas!

So many corporations seem to be at it, it maybe easier to list the one’s that aren’t exploiting tax loopholes (and then nationalise the rest!)

Tony Benn gives BBC a bollocking over Gaza

Protest Report: A Future That Doesn’t Work

We attended the TUC’s Future That Works rally in London at the weekend, to stand with those that oppose the Tories’ relentless austerity measures, and to take a few photos of what went on. Hampered by injuries and fatigue, we maybe weren’t pumped into our usual revolutionary fervor, but I couldn’t help but notice it wasn’t just us that seemed subdued. There can be no doubt that the turnout was good (estimates range from 100,000 to 250,000 participants), there was a lot of good drumming, placards and chants – but that’s where it seemed to end. It’s not that the mood was defeatist, it was more that the methods were conservative and the aims watered-down. While there were many calls for a General Strike amongst protesters on the street, there was little in the way of direct action, anger or real dissent. I’ve noticed that TUC rallies tend to me more populist and ‘middle-of-the-road’ than Occupy and UK Uncut et al, maybe necessarily so, but the real revolutionary contingent seemed missing this time around. What with Ed “One Nation Tory” Milliband speaking at the rally, with what basically amounted to a watered-down version of the Condem’s view on cutting the deficit, and a march that seemed more like a procession – it did appear that the movement had lost a little momentum, and was beginning to settle for ‘the lesser of two evils’.

This seems particularly strange in the current climate, as austerity begins to bite across the globe, with riots, general strikes and murmurs of revolutionary ideas beginning to appear in Greece and other European countries, my initial thought was maybe there just isn’t an appetite for that sort of conflict here in the UK.

But, on doing some reading when I got home, about what went on running up to the march on the 20th of October, it seems that the TUC were complicit in making the march as passive as possible. Read The TUC collaborate with the Met to sew up October 20 for more info on this. Further commentary on how the TUC handed the Met a list of 150 “violent activists” – from Libcom.org

If the trade unions are pushing to get Labour re-elected, and want to improve their image with the powers that be in order to do so, then this sort of conformity is to be expected, and their ‘Future that Works’ amounts to nothing more than ‘we’ll shut up for a promise of slightly less austerity’.

Another good post from Libcom.org, on the ‘state of the movement’ seems to confirm my suspicions that the right wing of the left was laying down the rules of engagement on the 20th of October. Read it here.

Anarchist Jailed For Remaining Silent

The Sun should run…

From Sabotage Times

What next for Libya

The attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the subsequent deaths of the US Ambassador and three other Americans has brought this troubled country back on everybody’s agenda. It has been out of the news for some time now because, from the Western Powers point of view, there had been nothing “good” to report.

In spite of mammoth support for sections of the then opposition against Gaddafi by these major powers, without which he would certainly NOT have been overthrown even now (as Syria is certainly proving), they are certainly not getting what they expected from their expensive intervention.

But that support, mostly military and using both missiles and attack aircraft, still could not guarantee the dominance of that section of the opposition preferred by their western collaborators (and another look at Syria proves that also).

Read the rest on the Shape Blog

Rap News 15

Assange interviews the President of Ecuador

Putin Lights Up the Fires

New single from Pussy Riot

From The Guardian

Rap News 14

The Pussy Riot Trial

I never thought I’d say this, but massive respect to Madonna for her stunt supporting Pussy Riot. People like Yoko Ono and Sting have made statements in support of the band and stuff, but only Madonna went to Russia personally and performed in front of a crowd of thousands of people with their name scrawled across her fucking back! I know she’s a master of cynically using controversy for her own publicity and everything, but fair play to her for this one – I just hope it makes sufficient impact. The fact that sentencing has been delayed may indicate that they are wavering under growing public support for Pussy Riot’s plight.

Madonna’s performance certainly seems to have offended the right people, with a Russian deputy Prime Minister (and former ambassador to NATO) tweeting “With age, every former slut tries to lecture everyone on morality” and a priest from the Russian Orthodox church urging believers to call in bomb threats to disrupt the gig! It sounds like they are clutching at straws to me. You can read more on this in The Guardian.

Pussy Riot’s closing statements yesterday took the form of a rousing speech against the authoritarian regime in Russia, leaving no doubt in my mind that these women are true freedom fighters and intelligent artists who have been demonized as part of a wider crackdown on dissent in the country.

The closing statements from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in trial. 8 august 2012:

“Yesterday (on the 7th of August according to the website lenta.ru) Madonna’s performance took place. Madonna performed with the inscription “Pussy Riot” on her back. More and more people see that we are kept in pre-trial prison illegally and because of an absolutely false accusation. I am astounded by it. I am astounded by the fact that truth really triumphs over lies though we are physically here, in the cage. We are freer than all the people sitting opposite us on the side of the prosecution because we can say everything we want and we do it. As for the people from the side of the prosecution, they say only words passed by a political censor. They can’t say such words as “punk-prayer” and “Virgin Mary, redeem us of Putin!” They can’t say the lines from our punk-prayer that are related to the political system. They probably think that another reason why we are to be put into prison is our rebellion against Putin and his system. But they can’t say it because they are prohibited to do it. Their mouths are sewn. Unfortunately, they are just puppets at this trial. I hope they will realize it and will also head for freedom, truth and sincerity because all this is more important than static nature, affected decency and hypocrisy.

Because we don’t really have religious hatred, and never had it, our accusers have no choice but to resort to using a false witnesses. One of them – Motilda Ivashchenko -got ashamed and did not appear in court. And there is no more evidence of our hatred and enmity, in addition to this so-called expertise. Therefore, the court, if it would be honest and fair, must admit inadmissible evidence, due to the fact that this is not a rigorous scientific and objective text, rather dirty and mendacious piece of paper times of medieval inquisition.

Prosecution is ashamed to voice excerpts from lyrics by PussyRiot, because they are in fact the evidence of the lack of motive. I’ll present you this excerpt here, I think it’s very valuable. It’s from the interview for the “Russian Reporter” magazine, that was given on the next day after the performance in the Chuch of Jesus The Savior: “We feel great respect to any religion and to orthodoxy in particular, that’s why we’re so distressed about that, so great and so positive as it is, Christian Philosophy is being used in such a filthy way. Our brain is getting blown out by that all this beauty is being now used from the back. All of this is quite painful to observe.

14:47 In the end I’d like to quote one of the Pussy Riot’s songs, as if curiously enough all of them turned to be fateful. Including the one which says: “Head of the KGB, their major saint, guides the protesters to detention under escort”.

15:06 And what I’m going to quote right now is this very line: “Open all doors, take off your shoulder straps, feel the air of freedom with us”.”

Good luck Pussy Riot, you have our love and respect.

Free Pussy Riot Now!

Digital Amnesty

Ragged Kingdom Closing Party

Artist and anarchist Jamie Reid, perhaps best known for his work with the Sex Pistols, is currently exhibiting a retrospective of his work at Temple Works in Leeds. The exhibition is on until the July 14th closing with an evening of experimental music and art curated by the Urban Exploration collective.

Interview with Jamie Reid
Urban Exploration Page

Urban Exploration will present a 4 hour epic set involving collaborative improv with Oliver Knight (spoken word), Jenny Komowsky (classical singing), Rowan Reid (singer/songwriter), Umcorps (modular synthesist), and a Navajo indian spirit dancer….all with a backdrop of tipis, interactive visuals and the largest reverb room ever!

More info on this event from Temple Works

Who’s George? Find out on the final night of Jamie Reid’s Ragged Kingdom at Temple.Works.Leeds, July 14, 7:00 pm – 1:00 am.

A fundraiser for St George’s Crypt homeless shelter in memory of our much loved porter Brian Bird (1959 – 2012), the night will see Jamie himself back at Temple.Works.Leeds.  An evening of extraordinary experiences will include experimental electronic ambient collective Urban Exploration collaborating with an opera singer, a poet, a singer songwriter (Jamie’s daughter Rowan), a hip-hop mc and a modular synthesist, and an acoustic set by Brian’s friends the Urban Stage Band – moving  from the Joiners bar into the Open Loading bay for a night of sound, light and …dancing by our surprise guest, Dennis Lee Rogers, the Spirit Dancer of the Navajo Nation in proximity to Jamie’s immense tipis which form part of his ongoing work around the Eightfold year. Celebrated dancer, artist and educator, Dennis met Jamie Reid in 1998 while on tour in U.K and returned to open Ragged Kingdom.in London in October 2011  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2Impc6pM8. Jamie’s piece Corporate Slavery currently hung in the Joiner’s Bar Main Gallery Space features Dennis himself.

Facebook Event Page

Why Comedians?

In the wake of the current onslaught against first, Jimmy Carr, and now Frankie Boyle for exploiting tax loopholes, the obvious question is why are comedians bearing the brunt of the flack against this endemic practice? Whether or not they are guilty of “moral” crimes (as David Cameron, of all people, would have it) ignorance or just “thrift” – neither of them had broken the law as it currently stands, but simply “managed” their accounts using the same old methods rich people have been using for generations. Creative accountancy is booming business and tax evasion is nothing new. Cameron’s own family fortune was made in tax havens. So is it one rule for big business and another for the rest of us? Why call comedians out for their financial activities when it is so common place among all the wealthy? Is it because they are accused of hypocrisy – undermining the moral high ground they appear to take in their performances? Are they just being called out to set an example because they are household names? Or is it just plain old mudslinging?

Arguably comedians have greater sway over public opinion than most politicians these days, and that may make them a legitimate target on the political playing field. Both Carr and Boyle have been critical of the government and the right-wing media in the past, and both are very popular performers, potentially influencing the opinions of millions of voters. Satire is still one of the most effective weapons against authority, and maybe it is beginning to be treated as such by those who wish to maintain the status quo, and those who have the most to lose in a swing to the left – people like The Daily Mail and David Cameron – the very people lining up to sling the mud. I very much doubt that this is a coincidence – either way it seems very convenient for them!

Frankie Boyle hit back at the allegations in The Daily Mail, tweeting:

“Amazed to read a Daily Mail story that is bollocks. Whatever next? I’m going to stick up the details as soon as my accountant wakes up.”

and

“From 2007 I have paid £2.7million in tax and this equates to just under 40% of my income. 1/5”

and

“I am certain I pay more tax than most people in show business and the cabinet. 5/5”

I propose, if this new wave of investigating comedian’s bank accounts is to continue, that the same should take place for all those who work at (and own) The Daily Mail group, the cabinet and every single Tory MP in the houses of parliament. Anything less would be grossly unfair to comedians. Now let’s see whose shirt is clean…

Shape on Austerity

“Are you wondering what is going on among the leaders of the Euro Zone of the European Union? Do you, along with British Prime Minister Cameron and his Tory colleagues, put the whole thing down to their stubborn refusal to act! Or do you decide that all such efforts to rationalise our World (including the lauded United Nations) are doomed to failure from the outset. Yet what is really happening is certainly none of these things! It is the final Dissolution of the Fictitious Value on which Capitalism rests. It is the regularly occurring and inevitable Crisis of Capitalism!”

More articles on Socialism and the collapse of Capitalism have recently been published on Shape Blog:

Austerity: The Rape of the Poor

The Major Crisis in World Capitalism

The latest in the Why Socialism series: The Essential Development of Marxist Theory 1

The Price of Being a Western Dissident

Julian Assange is doing humanity a favour by exposing through the US Embassy Cables that “Oil motivates U.S. policy more than fighting terrorists” and that the killing and torturing of tens of thousands of civilians by the US and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan through the Iraq War Logs and Afghanistan War Logs is evidence of war crimes.

However, to Assange’s dismay, as a western dissident, he does not enjoy the soft-power of being a Chinese dissident. The “free” world politicians fail to acknowledge the nobility of his work in exposing human rights violations and war crimes committed by NATO and the US. President Obama described his act as a “deplorable documents dump”; former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich believed that he should be “ treated as an enemy combatant”; Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell called him a “high-tech terrorist”; while Sarah Palin wanted him to be “hunted down like al-Qaeda.” Other politicians including some mainstream media “pundits openly call for his death.”

As an instant response, WikiLeaks has been blocked from being accessed by federal employees of the US. It is the same in Germany.

Read the rest of the article on dissidentvoice.org

Rap News 13

Insider tells why Anonymous ‘might well be the most powerful organization on Earth’

Read article in the National Post

 

Orwellian Doublespeak Queen speech

Another great rant from Chunky Mark 🙂

All Quiet On The Northern Front?

ICELAND. No news from Iceland?… why? How come we hear everything that happens in Egypt but no news about what’s happening in Iceland:
…
In Iceland, the people has made the government resign, the primary banks have been nationalized, it was decided to not pay the debt that these created with Great Britain and Holland due to their bad financial politics and a public assembly has been created to rewrite the constitution.

And all of this in a peaceful way. A whole revolution against the powers that have created the current global crisis. This is why there hasn’t been any publicity during the last two years: What would happen if the rest of the EU citizens took this as an example? What would happen if the US citizens took this as an example.

This is a summary of the facts:

2008. The main bank of the country is nationalized.
The Krona, the currency of Iceland devaluates and the stock market stops. The country is in bankruptcy

2008. The citizens protest in front of parliament and manage to get new elections that make the resignation of the prime minister and his whole government.
The country is in bad economic situation.
A law proposes paying back the debt to Great Britain and Holland through the payment of 3,500 million euros, which will be paid by the people of Iceland monthly during the next 15 years, with a 5.5% interest.

2010. The people go out in the streets and demand a referendum. In January 2010 the president denies the approval and announces a popular meeting.

In March the referendum and the denial of payment is voted in by 93%. Meanwhile the government has initiated an investigation to bring to justice those responsible for the crisis, and many high level executives and bankers are arrested. The Interpol dictates an order that make all the implicated parties leave the country.

In this crisis an assembly is elected to rewrite a new Constitution which can include the lessons learned from this, and which will substitute the current one (a copy of the Danish Constitution).

25 citizens are chosen, with no political affiliation, out of the 522 candidates. For candidacy all that was needed was to be an adult and have the support of 30 people. The constitutional assembly starts in February of 2011 to present the ‘carta magna’ from the recommendations given by the different assemblies happening throughout the country. It must be approved by the current Parliament and by the one constituted through the next legislative elections.

So in summary of the Icelandic revolution:
-resignation of the whole government
-nationalization of the bank.
-referendum so that the people can decide over the economic decisions.
-incarcerating the responsible parties
-rewriting of the constitution by its people

Have we been informed of this through the media?
Has any political program in radio or TV commented on this?
No! The Icelandic people have been able to show that there is a way to beat the system and has given a democracy lesson to the world.

Thanks to Repeace for this post. Respect.

Why London 2012 epitomises everything that’s wrong with the world

And so it is that the socio-economic model of the 21st century attains its iconic apotheosis: a gated community with added surface-to-air missiles.

Read the Guardian article here

NHS Carve-up… the Spending of Public Money. A Couple of Well-Worded Links!

This succinct map and the article that goes with it is to be found on this blog, a terrifying indication of the rapid onset of privatisation of our NHS… important if very depressing information…

I thought I would include this guy too- expresses his anger at the spending of public money better then I could muster without quite blowing a fuse…

 

Spread your cheeks

Naomi Wolf writes in The Guardian about how the US State is increasingly using sexual humiliation to subjugate it’s citizens.

Is the Occupy movement and other domestic unrest scaring the powers-that-be into ever more draconian security policies?

Why have security forces been given the power to strip-search US citizens at random? Is this encroaching fascism the conservative’s inevitable response to an increasingly anarchistic (even revolutionary?) mindset in America’s youth?

Whatever the answer is to any of these questions, this is scary shit.

Read it

Don’t get sucked in to Kony 2012

“KONY 2012 is a cleverly orchestrated campaign specifically aimed at today’s youth, the future citizens of the world. Using state-of-the-art techniques and new technologies, the campaign is a first attempt at “reverse propaganda”, where the agenda APPEARS to emanate from the people. By using emotions, irrational thoughts and superficial explanations, KONY 2012 attempts to trick well-meaning people, who desire to make a positive change in the world, to instead fuel a gigantic war machine that is controlled by the world’s elite.

Is KONY 2012 trying to eradicate child-soldiers or is it attempting to create a new kind of child-soldiers?”

From Blacklisted News

Some stuff in the Guardian

Article on Al Jazeera

Fence-sitting from Vice

Ben Keesey defends Invisible Children

Critical article from Alternet

Why are The Telegraph and The Sun pseudo-defending it (Right Wing Press) and the Left and Liberal media are suspicious?

Why are there so many seemingly subliminal style edits in the film, and cryptic iconography?

Why is the TRI logo an INVERTED peace sign, similar to the Yggdrasil ‘tree of life’ rune used by right-wing extremists?

The above image is a shot from the Kony 2012 film – it is shown for less than a second…

Too many oddities and unanswered questions for me. Not solid evidence I know but I do not trust the people behind this, there is definitely a hidden agenda of some sort.

It’s the weird manipulative cultish overtones and glossy american christian-ness that sent my own alarm bells ringing – but yeah, don’t take this at face value anyway, do some background reading and make up your own mind.

Just a heads-up.

Operation Black March

Black March is coming…

I’m a musician and DJ, I help to run a record label and have been involved in running live music events, promoting independent music and writing about it online for many years – I love music and the people that make it, but I don’t have much love for the music ‘industry’. Like most big business entertainment, the music biz leeches off the hard working and the talented, makes huge profits and routinely fucks over both the artist and the consumer.

Have a look at this link if you are still in any doubt about who this parasitic behemoth really benefits. It aint the musician.

These are the people that are lobbying governments worldwide to monitor online content, censor and remove websites they don’t like, and they support the introduction of draconian litigation such as the now infamous SOPA, PIPA and PCIPA bills, to defend their industry.

While I completely support the musician’s right to earn a living from their craft, clamping down on internet freedom is not the way to defend it. A free internet is vital for a free world. If governments and corporations have increased powers over internet content that freedom is threatened. The web is the most powerful tool we have for self-expression, inducing social change and for the dissemination of great art and music. We cannot allow these people to take that away from us.

This is why I support the Black March campaign.

From the 1st of March 2012 to the 31st, we ask you not to buy any music, DVDs, computer games or books – don’t even torrent a song! Wait till the 1st of April and buy it then. No one will actually lose any money, but the visible dent in their profit margins for the first quarter will send a powerful message to the corporations and organisations that wish to push these online censorship measures. We can stop this going through. Wikipedia and others going dark last month, and the attacks by Anonymous have already made policy makers hesitate. If music consumers join the fray, they will have another powerful enemy. Vote with your wallet and support Black March – boycott the music industry next month.

Some of my friends have expressed concerns that this campaign will somehow hurt small labels and record stores, who of course have nothing to do with lobbying for increased control of internet content. My answer to this dilemma is very straightforward. Buy the music you would have bought in March now. And spend more again in April. Of course you should support the small businesses and record labels you respect. This isn’t about them. This about sending a message to the industry as a whole, the big distributors, the fat cats and to governments around the world. We will not tolerate internet censorship in any form.

If you care about online freedom, please get involved in this campaign. If you wish to see a fairer music industry, buy music directly from the artists and from small record shops. Fuck Universal. Fuck Disney. Fuck News Corporation. Fuck Sony Music Entertainment. Support freedom and creativity.

Sorry for the rant peeps! If you’ve read this far I salute you. Peace out.

Occupy Unmoved