STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING. - Blackbird Raum

Written By: Kahil

Listen to Blackbird Raum. Go to http://www.anti-politics.net/. You can hear songs off of their album, “Purse-Sein.”

The sound quality of the recording is debatable, but the energy makes it through intact. The first song on the album, “Pistol Dance,” is a good summation of the rest of the songs that come – energetic, orchestrated chaos that is always held in time by the washboard player and washtub bassist, accentuated by very powerful harmonies, haunting musical saw, jitterbug accordion and the fastest Clawhammer banjo soloist (I’ve heard of) around.

Their sound can be best be described as a driving and thunky acoustic set with loud raging vocals, fast, danceable, and necessary to sing along to. They call themselves a Kascinzkyian Nihilistic Jug Band. Which is about as close a description as you could make. They are a busking band that redefines what a street band can be.

Blackbird Raum tours constantly; if you check their website and are on the West Coast, chances are they are coming through or have in the past. Their live shows cannot be missed. They are, along with bands like The Hail Seizures, Dandelion Junk Queens, and Di Nigunum re-injecting life back into punk, and giving it a much needed suicide note, reading “Capitalism Killed Me” (Bang.).

They are adherents to the DIY ethic, to the utmost, playing the music they want to hear and playing it with passion that stems not from speed induced ego masturbation, but from the knowledge that this world, this society, and most of all, this hierarchical system of thinly veiled patriarchy is in its death throes. This is the music you will hear after there is no electricity left, and the world is (finally) on fire.