Stop A Chur Le Gach Cogadh

(Deireadh Leis An Screadaíl)

Running Time: 6:30

Released On: "Стоп!" - Various Artists (rolling compilation)

Label: Attenuation Circuit

Release Date: 28th February 2022, our track added 12th March 2022

Format: Download

Buy Link: Bandcamp

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W a r .   W h a t   i s   i t   g o o d   f o r ?   A b s o l u t e l y   n o t h i n g .   ( E d w i n   S t a r r )

The lantern lit vigil in Knott End-On-Sea for the people of Ukraine

Conflict almost seems to be an intrinsic part of our world, it's a near universal constant, so much so that we have become way too tolerant of it. Will Ukraine be the game changer? One can hope. Now I don't pretend to know exactly why, but this particular war (and that's what bombing, shelling and killings amount to, Mr. Putin, not a 'special operation') has resonated with people here in a way I have not really seen before. That local heroine Nattie Wright's Knott End & Preesall Help Group would organise a lantern lit vigil in a remote Lancashire seaside village, that probably no more than 60 of us would brave the chill evening, yet still the bucket collection alone amounted to the best part of £850 (and much more since). Putin has certainly succeeded in uniting people in a way that would rarely have seemed possible beforehand.

I've taken this one very personally too, we've had material released in both Russia and Ukraine, we have music related friends in both, friends of over three decades standing in the latter, some of whom I have heard nothing from since the day of the invasion. Back in the days of Music & Elsewhere, we helped distribute the music of the Kharkiv Underground, barely a year after the nation's independence from the former USSR. It was called Новая Cцена - 'new stage' in Russian, not Ukranian, because the people Russians are killing, and whose homes they are destroying, in Kharkiv, are mostly ethnic Russians. When you have personal history with the very people in danger, it brings things in to perspective in a truly chilling manner. I can't seem to get responses from any of our friends in Russia at the moment either, though I gather that is for quite different reasons.

One cannot help but feel powerless against the nuclear might of Putin's war machine, but I believe every voice against his arrogance and aggression matters. We salute Sascha Stadlmeier at Attenuation Circuit for starting this rolling compilation (it is intended to continue until the end of the last war on the planet, the most noble of intentions, though I fear Bandcamp's capacity will more likely give first), and we salute every artist who has contributed a track to it. The album, 'Stop!' in the Cyrillic alphabet, contains only tracks titled "Stop All Wars" in the native tongue of the creators. We went with our ancestral Irish, being proud members of the Clan Ó Coileáin, because there were already several titled in English and the more universal the album, the better. The bracketed addition means more or less 'let the screaming end', and it was my imagining the screams of war victims, particularly children, whom our hearts really go out to, that inspired our track. It's not a comfortable listen, then war is not a comfortable experience.

Our Twizz has been particularly moved by the plight of the children fleeing the country. Nattie's group had also planned to collect donations of chocolate for them, as that is what so many of the refugee children had said they were missing most, bless them. Impressed by her attitude at the vigil, she asked Twizz if she would like to help. One flyer design and a walk up and down the length of our road putting them through letterboxes later, and here we are...

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THE PUTIN SONG!

POLITIC SOCIAL CLUB