"Get up," said Bob Marley. "Stand up," added Bob Marley. "Stand up for your rights," Bob continued, really hammering his point home. The Bobster was onto something. Sometimes, we really do have to stand up and be counted.
You may have noticed that the political atmosphere has become increasingly febrile, a word that is only ever used for political atmospheres. The far right is on the rise, geopolitical tensions are at breaking point, and idiots have got their y-fronts in a twist about trans people and roundabouts.
Electronic music is political. There are a tonne of reasons for this, and there's a whole Substack long-read to be written about techno music, tribes and politics. However, this is not Substack. It is Blogger. So let's approach the subject in an utterly trite way.
Let's start an occasional blog series featuring political electronic music. Yay! Woo! Bleepy tracks that will have you dancing on your soapbox.
Each time I'll feature one particular political tune, with a couple of extras. Some tracks signal their politics with bright glow-sticks, while others will be more opaque. Either way, hopefully this will awaken the campaigner in us.
The Shamen: Fatman (1992)
The Shamen were a band in constant flux, moving from '80s electro pop to acid house freneticism to chippy chart pop to trippy introspection. I always felt that 1992's platinum Boss Drum album was an uneasy mix of a lot of these things.
Ebeneezer Goode was clearly making a point, vibing about the charts like no other track could. But it's album track Fatman that I want to focus on. It's a miserable tune, all minor chord and morose. The lyrics depict corporate fat cats as predators to be avoided – indeed, to be run away from. "Keep running," the song insists over a pensive Balaeric beat.
"...The rich are getting richer / The poor destitute / Whilst the Fat Man, / He's got your loot."
The band's early work was political, taking on religious indoctrination in Jesus Loves America or a politician getting mashed on mescaline in Christopher Mayhew Says. Later on in their career, they seemed more concerned about the wonders of cannabis - tracks such as Sativa and the trippy Cannabeo being a case in point.
Fatman was proper politics. Like going to a rave and being battered around the head with a copy of Socialist Worker. It feels like the band was capturing a perfect balance between meaningful soapboxing and "coming on like a seventh sense" drug talk.
Last year, rapper rapscallion Mr C reposted Fatman to his socials, commenting "We needed change over three decades ago - we're desperate now." He's not wrong.
Octo Octa: Power To The People (2019)
The breezy breakbeat, the hyped-up crowd noises, the sheer joy of it all. This 2019 tune from US DJ Octo Octa (pictured above) is a cheery number, and a highlight from her Resonant Body album.
The crowd noise in this track is specifically political. The sample is taken from an ACT-UP meeting that was held in the 1980s at the height of the AIDS pandemic; ACT-UP stands for AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power. The sound was captured in David France's 2012 documentary How To Survive A Plague.
The group was preparing for a face-to-face with New York mayor Ed Koch: the words you can hear in the Octo Octa track are "Act up, stand tall, tomorrow morning at City Hall". When Koch met the campaigners, he defended his description of ACT-UP campaigners as fascists. Considering he was a New York Democrat, Koch would have fitted in petty well with the modern Republican party.
The rest of Octo Octa's discography is worth a rummage. 2017 album Where Are We Going? is a deep house joy, and has a real sense of celebration, it being her first album release since fully coming out as trans.
Orbital: Are We Here? (Criminal Justice Bill mix) (1994)
This Cage-esque silent track was Orbital's response to 1994's Criminal Justice Act that sought to ban repetitive beats and to shut down the UK's illegal rave scene. If you don't have a copy of this Criminal Justice Bill mix, you can recreate your own version by not playing it. Orbital are still protesting. Paul out of Orbital recently collaborated with Kneecap, and Orbital have recently been opening their own sets with the "peace or annihilation" challenge of Choice. I think the correct answer is peace: the other one sounds bad.
Further Fats: On my mind – the Guardian's 100 greatest UK No 1s (2020)
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