Mixtapes

Here are all of the mixtapes we’ve released to date. PLease give them a listen, share, and submit one if you have a theme not represented here!

 

 
if a song could be freedom…mixtape 001 Political songs from Latin American made by Felipe Mujica & Johanna Unzueta

 

 
if a song could be freedom…mixtape 002 was put together by Skot! Oh, host of Sunday Morning Coming Down a radio show on People Will Radio.org. Skot! has been a DJ for the last 12 Years on various pirate radio stations in Austin, Tx and also an organizer with the literacy and books to prisoner project, the Inside Books Project.

 

 
if a song could be freedom…mixtape 003, of radical brass bands, was made by Phil Andrews. Phil has been an organizer for over 15 years and currently the Director of Retail Organizing for the RWDSU/UFCW. He is also a musician and songwriter, and has been in many bands including Funkrust Brass Band, Gay Panic, Glittered and Mauled, Apocalypse Five & Dime and most notably has been a member of the radical marching band the Rude Mechanical Orchestra for over 10 years.

 

if a song could be freedom…mixtape 004 Tuning Baghdad / Captiva version, is curated by Regine Basha.
Mixed and Mastered at the Rauschenberg Residency by Jason Stilp


if a song could be freedom…mixtape 005 is a Detroit themed set curated by Dan S. Wang. Dan is a writer, artist, organizer, and printer who was born in the American Midwest in 1968 to immigrant parents. His constant concerns are the relationships between art + politics, critical reflection + social action, place + history. prop-press.net


if a song could be freedom…mixtape 006 is curated by Tom Roe from Wave Farm. Tom co-founded free103point9, in 1997 as a microradio artist collective in Brooklyn, New York. Today, he serves as the Artistic Director of Wave Farm (formerly known as free103point9). Roe lead Wave Farm’s efforts to establish WGXC 90.7-FM, an FCC-licensed full-power non-commercial FM radio station, serving New York’s Upper Hudson Valley since 2011, and currently manages the over 60 hours a week of Transmission Arts and Experimental Sounds programming on the station. He has frequently lectured about how to perform with transmitters and the history of radio performance and microcasting at venues such as Columbia University, Brown University, Brooklyn College, Flux Factory, The Kitchen, NYU’s ITP Program, Kids Discover Radio in East Harlem, Grassroots Media Conference at The New School, RPI University in Troy, among others. A sound transmission artist, Roe has exhibited widely both in the United States and internationally, performing with transmitters and receivers using multiple bands (FM, CB, walkie-talkie), as well as prepared CDs, vinyl records, and various electronics. He has also written about music for The Wire, Signal to Noise, and The New York Post.


if a song could be freedom…mixtape 007 is curated by Xaviera Simmons. I assembled the playlist “Revolutionary Roots” to engage the Black Male revolutionary voice that has rung throughout the landscape and through the speakers of Jamaica and Jamaican radio for over 60 years. Revolution and political engagement are always present and underneath the Jamaican landscape. The lyrics to the majority of songs produced there have some kind of resonate political overtone; be they conservative or liberal, deeply personal or openly worldly. There is a revolutionary tone even in the love songs which is pretty stunning for such a small island. Jamaica is a small island with mighty people and an epic creative output that reverberates around the world.
I choose to create a playlist that focused on both popular Reggae revolutionary tracks like Bob Marley’s “War” which is a partial transcription of Ethiopian Emperor Haile Salassie’s 1963 United Nation’s Address, to lesser known artists (though still popular in their own right) like Mutabaruka and his scathing critique of the lackluster political engagement of “Blacks In Amerika”. I also chose to focus on sounds from the late 70’s till the late 80’s as I am particularly attracted to roots music in Jamaican sound and how roots music and revolution still resonate today.


if a song could be freedom mixtape 008 – “Tahrir Square” is curated by Ganzeer. Ganzeer is the pseudonym of an Egyptian “contingency artist” operating mainly between graphic design and contemporary art since 2007. “He is not an author, comic book artist, installation artist, painter, speaker, street artist, or videographer, though he has assumed these roles in a number of places around the world.” He is also one of the protagonists in the documentary “Art War” (2014) by German director Marco Wilms. Much of his street-art work in Egypt is well-documented in the book “Walls of Freedom” (2014) published by From Here to Fame Publishing.


if a song could be freedom mixtape 009 – Burning Cop Car was produced by Frank and the folks at submedia.tv.
subMedia.tv is a video production ensemble, which aims to promote anarchist and anti-capitalist ideas, and aid social struggles through the dissemination of radical films and videos. Founded in 1994, subMedia.tv has produced hundreds of videos on everything from anti-globalization protests to films about shoplifting.
subMedia.tv produces the series It’s the End of the World as we know it and I feel fine a “fowl mouthed, satirical and irreverent news show that aims to celebrate global resistance movements, radical music and anarchist rabble rousers.”


if a song could be freedom…Mixtape 010 Protest and Survive is brought to us by Brandon Bauer. Brandon is an artist based in Wisconsin. His Euromissiles Crisis print series critically examines the nuclear abolition movement in the 1980s. The series references cultural, political, and activist events of the era, and serves as an allegory of citizen involvement, as well as the power of everyday people within the political process. The Euromissiles Crisis print series was installed as part of his exhibition titled: A Call To Halt, which included a reenactment of the 1982 Nuclear Freeze Referenda, in which Wisconsin was the first in the nation to put multilateral nuclear disarmament policy to a popular vote.

if a song could be freedom mixtape 011 – Paredon Records is produced by Erin Yanke and Alec Icky Dunn. “Founded in 1969 by Barbara Dane and Irwin Silber, Paredon Records was part of a wave of cultural expression that accompanied the worldwide struggle for economic, racial, and social justice and national liberation of the mid-twentieth century.” The following is an interview Erin and Alec conducted for their article in Signal: 03.


if a song could be freedom…mixtape 012 #SeguimosRevolusonando was produced and submitted by Suena a Revolución. an audio/podcast project that started in April of 2014. Suena a Revolucion focuses on music of contemporary independent artivists from Latin America and the Caribbean that use music as a vehicle for social movement. Our goal is to share music and interviews of artivists committed with social change through the power of synergistic action-word. We believe that the transforming power of music invites catharsis, joins forces, builds communities and through other voices, channels and reinvents history out of power.


if a song could be freedom – 013 – Injustice For All is a mixtape by Lara Messersmith-Glavin.
“I grew up in very remote, rural areas of the Pacific Northwest, in predominately white, working-class communities. The only music I heard was country, bluegrass, classical, and—for the freaks—metal. I didn’t hear punk rock until I was in my twenties, and by then, had already developed a strong emotional attachment to the cathartic rage and dark lyrics that metal afforded. After I moved to cities and became more involved in radical politics and organizing work as an adult, I was surprised to find how many of my comrades had been politicized through punk and hip hop, genres I knew next to nothing about. I was equally surprised how dismissive folks were of metal—as if they were only familiar with it at its worst: misogynistic, sell-out noise for white men. While it’s true that many branches of metal have histories of sexism, heterosexism, racism, and indiscriminate or gratuitous violence, the same is true of many other genres of popular music. For this playlist, I wanted to share some of the metal artists who use the intensity of the sound, the aggression, to capture the essential outrage and passion that is the (necessary) shadow side and fuel for much of our transformative work, and who bring insightful analysis and history to audiences who might never hear it, otherwise.”—Lara Messersmith-Glavin


if a song could be freedom mixtape 013 A Brave New World is a Post Punk, Industrial music, and youth movements in Europe, East and West, during the late 1970s and early 80s, curated by Jamie Chaoten. Jamie has been a supporter of Interference Archive since the beginning, and was born and raised in Brooklyn, NY. He is an experimental filmmaker, teacher, and musician. Playing in the anarchist dark wave band Rosa Apátrida, he currently lives in Europe.



Doom and Gloom: Prog-Metal Playlist, by Paul Messersmith-Glavin
I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Chicago, predominantly Catholic, with Irish, German, Polish, Puerto Rican and Asian folks. For us boys, our form of rebellion was growing our hair and listening to metal and progressive rock (prog rock). Our embrace of metal expressed our anger, pain and defiance, while prog rock, bands like Yes and Genesis, captured our highest aspirations, representing the utopian amidst the decay and concrete grey of our existence. I didn’t meet kids into punk or New Wave until I meet people from the suburbs, and got into punk and industrial after high school when I started working at the underground radio station WZRD, The Wizard.
This playlist includes both familiar, classic rock bands, like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest, as well as newer bands like The Sword and Witchcraft. An encouraging recent development is women fronting or playing key roles in metal bands, including bands like Windhand, Electric Citizen, and Eight Bells. Chicago’s Mount Salem represents this here.
Metal and Prog rock continue to be my go to musical choices. Metal is currently enjoying an innovative revival, with bands like YOB leading the way. Enjoy!



Amit Gilutz is a composer and activist originally from Israel/Palestine, now based in the USA. His work is interdisciplinary and conceptual, particularly focused on the question of music’s ability to participate in the practice of social justice.