Dragged Across Concrete

Kotra
Grit Light
GERMANY I SHALL SING UNTIL MY LAND IS FREE SONG 29 CD (2024)
Dmytro Fedorenko under his Kotra name continues his sonic protest against the war between Russia and Ukraine. Not just in music but the very label name itself is a stark slogan which will ring in the hearts of many oppressed humans, and his business model enables him to generate funds in support of many humanitarian agencies and “local activists”, which may refer to anything from outspoken political agitators to commandos fighting in a resistance movement, for all I know.

This worthy endeavour showed up on our antenna in 2024, but it must date back to 2022 at least, the exact same year when the Russian invasion began. If that implies, for you, a certain agility and urgency to this creator’s rapid responses, you’d be 100% correct since the same “don’t hesitate” ethos runs through every note of his powerful, no-prisoners approach to generating electronic hammer-thuds and emissions of stern-face grimmitude. To give you a further marker of his commitment to this “cultural-political” enterprise, as he calls it, there are also releases in the catalogue from Muslimgauze, whose seemingly never-ending stream of releases protested the situation in Israel with an unflagging energy, and Merzbow, adding one of his animal-rights audio statements to swell the general effort. Both artists have exhibited a “for-or-against” stance in their work which is fully aligned with the mission of I Shall Sing.

On today’s item we are as ever impressed – meaning overwhelmed – by the precision and clear-sighted determination that fuels every one of these stern, remorseless episodes, and the track titles don’t leave much room to maneuver for the casual listener, either. Nothing refers directly to the subject-matter at hand, but there’s an oblique subtext to these titles that leave us in little doubt as to the ideological commitment of this fellow. The artworks (also by Fedorenko) likewise seem to lead us forwards to a confrontation with certain hard and unignorable truths, even if they are very abstract. Interestingly, I see he put the original paintings for sale on his Bandcamp page (long sold out, of course). Exceptionally strong release. (19/11/2024)