DIGGING DEEPER
QLOWSKI THERE’S A QUESTION THAT HAS BEEN PESTERING US FOR A WHILE: WHAT FUTURE?
At the end of 2019, we were looking at the coming year with so much hope and excitement. We were getting ready to record our first album, then flying to America for SXSW and many more gigs ahead of us back in Europe. But Covid-19 happened. Everything fell apart. No need here to remind anyone of what the past year has been like. After more than a year of lockdowns and forced stillness, everyone’s craving for normality. A question arises, what ‘normal’ we want to go back to? What kind of future do we want? Words by Qlowski
It would be so naive if we sustained that before March 2020 everything was ok. Not even a bit. Inequality, exploitation, systemic racism rooted at every level of our society (no matter what bullshit that report says), rampant sexism and discrimination, unruled and unaccountable policing, unemployment, the housing crisis and growing homelessness, youth mental health crisis, environmental crisis and the list goes on. It was all already there. It all stank already. So, where do we stand? What’s our role as artists? The story we are trying to tell with our new album is a story of frustration, hopelessness, commiseration, and personal 22
daily struggle. But also a story of faith and utopia. We dream of a community of musicians and artists, opposed to an industry of competing individuals. We believe in solidarity as the guiding force towards a fairer future, and it has to start in our very own circle. You might say we are just dreamers on the fringes, and yes, these are just songs. But the future is for us to demand, now! Our first album ‘Quale Futuro?’ (What Future? in Italian) is out on June 4th via Maple Death Records and Feel It Records. It will come with a 28 pages zine, in which more than 20 artists and friends contributed with images, poems and short essays. Photography by Patrick Smith
