Rebel Songs (2021): New Album from David Rovics and Friends
by David Rovics -This Week with David Rovics
March 9, 2021
The first album from David Rovics of 2021 is out now on Bandcamp
and will soon be up on all the usual music streaming platforms,
including SoundCloud's new streaming platform, when it launches on April
1st.
The album, Rebel Songs, is a very pandemic-inspired international collaboration between Oregon, where the basic tracks were recorded at Big Red Studio in Corbett, and Ireland, where Pol Mac Adaim added various instruments to the mix and turned it all into an album, at his home studio in the Cooley Mountains.
Feel free to share this press release, in whole or in part, in any form, anywhere, with or without attribution.
The
new album features 13 original songs, all written between the fall of
2019 and the fall of 2020. The oldest song on the album was written in
the days just after the last time David and Pol did an album together,
though back then, in the fall of 2019, it was all made in person, in
Ireland. "The Pogroms of 1969" is a song about what is still living
memory for many, when a campaign of government lies and sabotage
combined with other factors to inspire a wave of mob attacks on
predominantly Catholic communities across Northern Ireland, where Pol
grew up.
There are two other songs about
history on the album -- "When This Fertile Valley Was Stolen" and "The
Pandemic of 1918." The former speaks to the theft of the Willamette
Valley by the white settlers who founded the explicitly, institutionally
racist state of Oregon. The latter highlights some of the shocking
parallels between today and a century ago.
Whether
about history or current affairs, all of the songs in the collection
are in one way or another related to the present-day global pandemic, or
to the protest movement that arose partially in response to the many
inequities that were exposed by it, and the kleptocrat-led US
government's inept response to it.
The songs
speak to the present, and to the times we've been living in over the
past year in particular. "They Lied" explores why so many of the people
dying of Covid-19 didn't believe the virus existed. "To All the Jared
Kushners of the World" is a stinging, and driving, indictment of the
billionaire class that this American oligarch represents.
"Say
Their Names" was written months into the Black Lives Matter uprising,
and controversially puts Micah Xavier Johnson in the pantheon of Black
martyrs sacrificed at the altar of white supremacy, along with George
Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Kendra James, and
others whose names are said.
"Essentially
Expandable (The Death of Jason Hargrove)" highlights the plight of what
we have come to call "essential workers," the last to be paid or
protected, and the first to die. "There's Water On The Moon" is
escapist fantasy, inspired by one of the many scientific discoveries of
2020. "Behind These Prison Walls" gives this tribute to Wikileaks and
Julian Assange the band treatment.
"With Masks
Upon Their Faces and Leaf-Blowers In Their Hands," "Don't Pay The Rent,"
and "Our Imagination" are all songs inspired by the variety of social
movements that have grown exponentially since the events of the past
year, in David's home town of Portland, Oregon, and far beyond.
In
addition to David's guitar and voice, and Pol Mac Adaim's keyboards,
whistles, harmonicas, vocal harmonies, and mixing prowess, Rebel Songs
features Arcellus Sykes on acoustic and electric bass, and Spank Hopkins
on drums, with Billy Oskay performing essential roles as both producer
and engineer for the recording sessions for the basic tracks.
David
is, as always, available for interviews, online concerts, etc. You can
email him at drovics@gmail.com, or call or text him at +1 503 863 1177.
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