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A New Place 2 Drown

Archy Marshall

Alternative Hip Hop / Trip Hop

Made in tandem with a book and short film alongside his brother Jack, A New Place 2 Drown produced by English singer-songwriter-producer-wordsmith Archy Marshall is an homage to the lives and stories of the two South London brothers. The heights that are reached on this album in beat production and candid lyrical content are served by an effortlessly cool Archy, whose perfectly unique voice floats over each verse and in and out of vocal processing in dreamlike invocation. Slow rolling beats and booming bass contrast the bright, yet stinging synth sounds seemingly passed through corroded equipment for nuanced distortion, setting the perfect stage for lyrics that transparently speak of young life strife in wise and witty delivery. Intuitive mixing and panned sounds make tracks like “The Sea Liner MK 1,” and “Empty Vessels,” float past you akin to being in a swift current of water, lost in the drift. This album is exceptionally captivating on vinyl as each song blends into the next, with Archy often stretching samples and sounds across transitions between tracks, making for a reluctant flip of the record; eager to keep listening. The production and instrumentation of this album solidifies Archy as a fruitful hip hop producer in my eyes and ears with notable tracks “Buffed Sky,” “Ammi Ammi (featuring Jamie Isaac),” and “New Builds,” making the case, if not all of them. The subtleties of Archy’s production merit fare best on headphones in my opinion but listening to this album in stereo is still enjoyable just about anywhere, made possible by the musical sensibility Archy demonstrates through his artistry. One of my favorite records to play for guests.

[dubsdigs]

Joe Strummer (1952-2002)

On his birthday and in the age of pressure on the common man increasing by what seems to be the second, I think of one of my antifascist heroes, Joe Strummer. There are so many things to say about the Clash that I’ve said 1 million times over, but one sentiment always bears repeating—Joe Strummer was an important anti-establishment figure in popular culture of modern history. As a Marxist, Strummer struck a chord in a young generation of the possibility of a world free of imperialist capitalist governments and monarchies. The Clash’s captivating discography never fails to give you the feeling of riding around in the car with your friends, ready to terrorize the establishment and fight the system. Strummer’s musical talents with his time in the Clash cultivated music that spoke to a generation of restlessness; the youth and proletariat fed up with the ever-increasing world conflict and wealth disparity through blatant call outs of the oppressors of the ruling class. He gave a big Fuck You to Generals, Politicians, Bomb Droppers, Tyrants, Pigs—the whole lot. Rising in the punk music scene alongside acts like the Sex Pistols and the Buzzcocks, Strummer’s lyrical lectures of the plight of the working class were not rare for their content, but for his delivery. Compelling lyrical content weaved into captivating, genre blending music that you can’t help but feel throughout your entire body, Strummer’s messages of change were poetically jarring and came from a voice that didn’t care what you thought it sounded like, but you’d be damned if you didn’t listen. 

In the Clash’s self-titled debut album The Clash, released in 1977, track “Career Opportunities,” is Strummer’s own anthem for the working class and the struggles of entering the unrewarding cycle of capitalism. Lamenting that “Every job they offer you is to keep you out the dock,” Strummer resents capitalist governments for seeing its citizens as merely a means to capital by only offering jobs that perpetuate the existence of capitalism. Strummer’s voice pouring through your headphones paired with the bouncing, head bobbing hi-hat driven rhythm and jam-like feeling of the track “Clampdown” from the legendary 1979 album London Calling, ignites you to “Kick over the wall, cause government's to fall / How can you refuse it? / Let fury have the hour, anger can be power / D'you know that you can use it?” From the Clash’s 1980 masterpiece Sandinista!, the hypnotic groove of opening track “The Magnificent Seven” serves the dim tale of the average worker and the 7 hour workday of the capitalist cycle perfectly to your ears and memory with his poignant lyrical flow through lines like, “You can't be true, you can't be false / You'll be given the same reward,” regarding the fate of dissenters and those looking for a different way of life rid of the chains of imperialist capitalism like Martin Luther King Jr and Gandhi. Sandinista!, a title homage to the Sandinista National Liberation Front, the now democratic socialist party in Nicaragua who led the resistance against the United States occupation of Nicaragua in the 1930’s, holds songs that share themes against imperialism and against war that was ravaging the planet at the time. Opening with a US Marines’ chant, track “The Call Up,” presents Strummer rejecting the notion of answering the call to war and giving one’s own life for the sake of an imperialist monarch as he chillingly reminds us, “For he who will die / Is he who will kill.” The following track, “Washington Bullets,” details the horrors of United States’ intervention in South America and the victims of the imperialist tentacles the United States spreads throughout the world with its smuggling of weapons to facilitate cocaine trade leading to increased violence in communities, where, “The killing clowns, the blood money men / Are shooting those Washington bullets again.” Strummer antagonizes the atrocities of all imperialist interests worldwide, including the Soviet Union’s impact in Afghanistan that left thousands of Afghan rebels and Russian troops dead, carrying his view that every imperialist is to blame for the tragedies of interests in capital around the world in the curt and clear lyrical phrase, “An' if you can find a Afghan rebel / That the Moscow bullets missed / Ask him what he thinks of voting communist.” Strummer brought stories to the mainstream of injustices occurring throughout the world in a time where entire information wasn’t as readily available through the propaganda ridden Western countries.

From the classic 1982 album Combat Rock, Strummer gives a searing performance over an invigorating cacophony of perfectly blended distorted guitars, and the kind of driving punk drum beat that makes you want to break something, in opening track battle cry, “Know Your Rights.” The track is a best representation of Strummer speaking directly to his audience as a voice of social justice in his explanation of the three freedoms given to the poor and disenfranchised, and his questioning of those rights’ validity in actual life. Strummer mocks the contradiction of the power the police hold to unjustly murder civilians without consequence while murder is a serious offense if commit by anyone else. Sarcastically bringing to light the invasive verification process of applying for government assistance and the stereotypes of recipients of these systems that supposedly serve the people, Strummer jokes that the recipient should be so lucky as to receive the right to eat, while hinting that really they would be better off had they simply not needed the help in the first place. Ending with our third right, Strummer shouts out that although we have the clearest right of all, to speak freely, we would be foolish to think that we actually do have the right to test the government under their rule. That if you speak against the those who hold the power, the hand of the state will strike down.

The reason I chose to end with this song and dissect it the furthest (I’ll include a track list of my favorite antifascist Strummer songs below) is not only because of its straightforward simplicity, but as I was listening to my Combat Rock record again this morning it hit me that it has been 40 years since this song came out, unlike how I had ever considered before. 40 years to me is a stretch of time I have yet to experience, 40 years ago I wasn’t even a distant thought to either of my parents. And yet, as Strummer encourages me through my speakers, I can feel the same venom coursing through my veins in my opposition to the rise of fascism in my own country as if I’m listening to this same album in a different living room in 1980. It rocked me to connect so deeply to a different time in history through lyrics and music, as if I had been transported through time. Therein, to me, lies the power of Joe Strummer’s lyrical talent. His messages still ring true today and his legacy lives on in fueling the fire beneath a young generation aching for change. RIP 

Know Your Rights

Straight to Hell

Ghetto Defendant

The Magnificent Seven

The Call Up

Washington Bullets

Police On My Back 

Clampdown

The Guns of Brixton

Complete Control

I’m So Bored with the USA

Tommy Gun

Career Opportunities

White Riot