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All proceeds from this release will be donated to the charities INQUEST (
www.inquest.org.uk) and
350.org.
INQUEST is the only charity providing expertise on state related deaths and their investigation to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians.
350.org is building a global grassroots climate movement that can hold our leaders accountable to the realities of science and the principles of justice.
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It has been said that the frequency produced by the Earth’s revolutions is 136.102 Hz, or C#.
It has further been suggested that this tone corresponds to the meditative ‘Om’ sound, or even the ‘Amen’ of the Christian tradition.
At Blue Tapes, we have absolutely no idea whether any of this is true. But it’s a nice story, and a nice way to frame a dialogue between musicians from across the world, reacting with horror and sadness to recent events.
Earthtone is a 24-minute collaborative piece in C# by the Blue Tapes roster that has been structured to figuratively depict 24 hours on the piece of rock hurtling through space that we all call home.
Although it was completed during lockdown, we actually began recording the piece back in November 2019. Then, it felt important to make a collective statement about life on our rock, emphasising our similarities over our differences in the face of mounting division, inequality, nationalism, and the rejection of science and sanity by our leaders.
Then 2020 happened. Breathtaking environmental destruction, global pandemic, civilian uprisings against oppressive governments and institutionally racist law enforcement.
Life for all of us changed a lot during the time it took to make this poem about Earth. No piece of music can salve the injustices and pain felt by so many people right now. This collaboration – dreamed into life by musicians from Brazil to Japan and all kinds of places inbetween – is just a useless, beautiful reminder that we are all one species, one organism.
Our sicknesses and plights don’t start and stop along the fiction of national borders. If one of our groups is suffering, then the responsibility lies with the rest of us to provide protection and implement healing measures.