Music Is a Weapon

In “Marxa,” a track off Filastine’s potent, diverse new album,
Dirty Bomb, there’s a sample of Afrobeat pioneer Fela Kuti
saying, “Music is the weapon of the future.” It forces one to ponder if
some sonic properties can be inherently threatening to the status quo.
German producer Alec Empire used to say, “Riot sounds produce riots”;
it’s possible that this was not merely a catchy slogan to sell
records.

“Like all sound bites, [Fela’s statement is] an elegant falsehood,”
Filastine observes via e-mail from the wilds of New Mexico as he preps
for a North American tour. “Music has been, is, and will be a weapon.
There is nothing so futuristic about it. It could be one of the
principal weapons of the future, as other forms of resistance are made
impossible or recuperated into advertising campaigns. Music doesn’t
need lyrics to be subversive; it can tell stories with
frequencies.”

In which case, Filastine is a raconteur of rebellion. His musical
activities have consistently involved unconventional methods of
operation. As a percussionist for guerrilla performance-art outfits
like ¡Tchkung! and Infernal Noise Brigade throughout the ’90s and
early ’00s, Filastine beat the drum for leftist political causes,
raising consciousness and heart rates. These groups often literally
took their music to the city streets, striving to win hearts and minds
proactively and viscerally, and satisfying Filastine’s desire for
politically engaged art and kinetic, inspirational sound. Infernal
Noise Brigade participated in the 1999 WTO- meeting protest in Seattle
and agitated at several other such confabs wherever the world’s most
powerful leaders gathered to make oppressive, unjust policies. If INB’s
efforts didn’t exactly make earth a utopia, their motives and
persistence were admirable.

But eventually, Filastine felt stymied in Seattle and realized he’d
taken his artistic ambitions as far as he could here.

“I felt like Sisyphus, and Seattle was my rock,” he says. “I put
heaps of energy into making Seattle livable, or at least
exciting—the INB, ¡Tchkung!, speakeasy casinos in
warehouses, New Year’s Eve parades, street takeovers, film screenings,
sound interventions. My collaborators were too few and the number of
developers, disinterested hipsters, and cops too many. Better to spend
my efforts on a project that can be deployed globally rather than
fight, and continuously lose, a local battle.

“Of course, the same social pressures exist in Barcelona [where
Filastine currently dwells]; in the last few years we’ve seen
aggressive squat evictions and a clampdown on all types of street
culture. But here at least I don’t feel so lonely in acts of
resistance. And as the economy slides and real estate plummets, I think
it’s possible that we can begin to retake physical space.”

One wonders how Filastine—a nice, charismatic
dude—developed into the globally nomadic activist with a sampler,
drum machine, and cowbell. Was it a reaction to the dominant musical
paradigm happening in Seattle in the ’90s? Liberal parents? A William
S. Burroughs phase in his teens? Immersion in the Crass Records
catalog?

“All of the above, minus the liberal parents,” Filastine replies. “I
didn’t have a political epiphany by discovering some particular
injustice or seeing some influential documentary; I just had a gut
feeling that I was born into a fucked-up world. Later I did a process
of verification, or fact-checking, of what was already instinctual. So,
using your examples of Burroughs and Crass, they simply articulated
feelings that I hadn’t had words for before.”

Even before INB dissolved in 2006, Filastine had embarked on a
fruitful solo sojourn that led to him crossing paths with Jace Clayton
(aka DJ /rupture), who shared Filastine’s ravenous appetite for
inflammatory, bass-heavy dance music from the first and third worlds.
Clayton’s Soot Records has issued Dirty Bomb and its 2006
predecessor Burn It.

“Jace put out a DJ mix called Gold Teeth Thief; I’m a thief
with gold teeth, so I felt like the mix was talking to me,” Filastine
quips. “I sent Jace some tracks in the mail, and we got in touch. Later
I was passing through Barcelona, his home back then, and we took the
opportunity to master and cut the 7-inch vinyl that was my first
release as Filastine [2004’s ‘Judas Goat’].”

Dirty Bomb reflects Filastine’s spongelike capacity to
assimilate the sounds he hears during his extensive travels. Using a
United Nations assembly of vocalists (including local thunder-lunged
toaster DJ Collage on “No Lock No Key”) will help him gain listeners
who require lyrics, but, as he’s noted, frequencies can articulate
messages just as well.

Filastine believes his wanderlust has benefited his music. While
Pitchfork’s review of Dirty Bomb wrist-slapped him for going
through genres as if ticking off names on a checklist, Filastine has
earned his rampant eclecticism and deserves credit for putting a vital
signature on styles rarely heard by Westerners.

“Any artist is a product of their experiences: ‘You are what you
eat’ is as true for sensory input as it is for food,” he asserts. “I
feel comfortable deploying Moroccan melodies, Brazilian swing, or Limey
dubstep wobble because I’ve spent enough time in Marrakech, Rio, or
London that none of it sounds exotic to me. Combining these elements is
exactly how music should sound, according to me.”

The album’s disorienting travelogue through carioca, dub, dubstep,
dancehall, reggaeton, rap, rai, and other genres can be both thrilling
and exhausting. Listeners may wonder who the real Filastine is.
Can a musician become so sonically eclectic that he loses his identity?
(Of course, this question presumes that having an identity, and hence
being easily marketable, is a good thing.)

“It’s definitely possible that a musician can go off the deep end
with dilettantism, sonic schizophrenia,” Filastine admits. “But it’s
more likely that a musician might make music that is homeless, lacking
an established target audience. I know from my own tiring experience
that inventing a genre from scratch is not fun.”

While he’s realistic enough to understand that left-leaning, global
mashup music won’t topple governments, Filastine notes: “Sound is a
shortcut to trigger emotional states… a great tool for manipulation.
It might seem kind of odd, but I think every flaccid pop song is a tool
of direct manipulation and just as political as my music. When art is
hegemonic, its discourse is invisible.”

With his own info-rich website and a respected label releasing his
music, Filastine is well-situated to advance his agenda in our brave
new century. Eschewing cult-of-personality aggrandizing, he strives to
use his position for altruistic purposes, even as he uses MBA
jargon.

“Filastine is like any brand: As it successfully
continues, it
also builds power. I just want to leverage this power into creating
alternate paths of distribution and performance.

“One example is a recent tour I did in Indonesia. A stopover on the
way to an Australian tour made possible a series of free gigs across
Java and Borneo. It was an experience
so unmediated it felt
hyperreal, for myself and [for] the small audiences. The problem is
that I’m starting to burn out from touring—not the actual
playing, which is a pleasure, but the booking and travel-agency duties
that suck my time. I’ve got to flow like water, not get drowned in it.
So now is the moment to find allies in the Anglo-American music
industry who aren’t assholes.”