Fold: Amplifying Diverse Voices and Crafting Eclectic Sounds
FOLD are a Leeds based band amplifying humanitarian perspectives and critical reflections. At the heart of our musical journey lies a commitment to amplifying underrepresented voices and fostering critical reflections on the world we inhabit. By seamlessly weaving together MCs, poets, historical speakers, and singers, our aim is to create a platform for speaking freely and truthfully, ensuring that marginalized perspectives find resonance in our music. This ethos extends to our sonic palette, which traverses genres from jazz-funk to Brazilian, psyche, hip-hop, and downtempo, resulting in a sound that defies categorisation.
Described as 'a bit weird' by our own children, our unconventional approach has garnered praise from notable figures such as Lauren Laverne of BBC 6 Music, who exclaimed, "Absolutely loving this!" Since our inception in 2012, we've cultivated a strong presence in the underground British music scene, earning airtime on esteemed platforms such as BBC Radio 1, BBC 6 Music, Radio X, and Amazing Radio, as well as international stations. With endorsements from Indie Shuffle and features in renowned publications like The Times, The Guardian, and The NME, our reputation continues to grow. From nationwide gigs to live sessions for Lauren Laverne on BBC 6 Music, our journey is marked by a dedication to pushing boundaries and amplifying voices that deserve to be heard.
The song "Forever War" is inspired by the narrative of Mint Press CEO Mnar Adley, incorporating voices of various figures such as Kurt Vonnegut, Noam Chomsky, and others. Can you elaborate on how these diverse perspectives contribute to the overarching message of the song, and what motivated you to bring together such a council of voices?
Using lots of different voices mainly added greater depth, colour and even a kind of consensus to the central argument made by Mnar Adley, which is that the military-industrial complex is enabling endless wars for profit and that the western political establishment continues to support them even when it means abetting genocide and other horrific war crimes.
It’s estimated that 70–90% of all human communication is non- verbal. We believe there’s a lot being communicated in the sound or tone of someone’s voice. Each voice carries with it a certain weight of life experiences and other intangible qualities that can evoke gravitas, empathy and other things. This is particularly true of words and phrases that are loaded with meaning for the person speaking them. Word and tone combine into something more.
The ‘forever war’ hook in the song, which is voiced by all those you mentioned along with many others—including bell hooks, Alex Haley and Mike Ruppert—acts as a recurring anchor bringing us back to the bleak realities of never-ending war. The effect of these many voices speaking this simple, evocative phrase—all of whom have had something crucial to say on the subject of war—feels a bit like a council of elders reaching a solemn or tragic consensus.
We wanted to include a verse about the use of dehumanisation to make one group of people feel okay about killing another, which is key to understanding how horrors such as the Holocaust or any genocide can and do occur. This is voiced by Alice Walker. We also wanted to close on a vision of peace through imagining the dismantlement of the arms industry, which is voiced by Lorraine Hansberry.
So I guess that the motivation to deploy such an unusually high density of voices was to evoke consensus, community and solace.
The music of "Forever War" is described as having elements reminiscent of Black Sabbath's War Pigs, production akin to Portishead, and a hint of Serge Gainsbourg in the songwriting. How did these diverse musical influences come together, and how do they enhance the emotional and thematic aspects of the song?
Although Fold is a collective, most of the writing is done by me (Seth) and these are all longstanding influences in my world, Black Sabbath being the longest. So the way all of these influences come together is largely in my own head during the writing process, though not deliberately. I get into a state of creative flow and just allow things to emerge.
To be fair, everyone in the group loves Black Sabbath, not just me. When I came to write this piece, we’d been practicing War Pigs as a cover so that was fresh in my mind. I’d also recently heard an episode of The Blindboy Podcast describing how Sabbath’s most engaged audience in the late 60s / early 70s were veterans who’d returned from Viet-Nam and were dealing not only with often debilitating injuries but severe PTSD and disillusionment with their government. The music of Sabbath has always spoken to us for similar reasons, because it is so much about processing trauma and challenging the narratives of power.
Portishead have been an influence on me since they appeared on the Bristol scene in the mid-90s, especially when it comes to production, because they are so adept at reaching into and reflecting the darkest parts of our internal worlds through sound and language. There is a brutal honesty and openness in their music that I have aspired to ever since discovering them and the beats are, quite frankly, fat as fuck; even by the high standards of hip hop’s golden age.
Some of Serge Gainsbourg’s work resonates strongly with me because of the way his story came through in the music. He was a Jew who lived through the Nazi occupation of Paris as a young man, so again: trauma. You can sometimes hear the anguish and grief in his music, especially Le Chanson de Slogan. That song hits me emotionally like a ton of bricks.
In a way, all of these influences have set a high bar for us as a group in terms of music’s potential to act as a kind therapy, an emotional release with an intellectual or poetic component.
Songwriter Seth Mowshowitz is described as a descendant of Holocaust survivors, infusing the music with the haunting intensity of ancestral memory. How does this personal connection influence the creative process and emotional depth of "Forever War"?
I lost roughly half of my extended family during the Holocaust at the hands of the Nazis in occupied Poland and Belarus (for being Jewish), I inherited some intergenerational trauma and became acutely aware of the horrors of war from an early age. I’ve carried a certain amount anguish and grief my whole life. Like the other members of Fold I consider myself to be a critical thinker and my family history has very much influenced the way I experience and perceive the world.
Aside from my neurodivergence (undiagnosed, suspected autism / ADHD) which also gives me an increased sensitivity to injustice, I’ve always felt kinship with the oppressed peoples of the world, due at least in part to this ancestral trauma. I’ve always been suspicious of power and those who wield it, always asked questions (who benefits?) and can usually see through manipulative narratives, as long as its not coming at me too quickly. Everyone who has ever been part of the Fold collective has most of these things in common.
Music became an accessible force for changing the world in my mind the moment I was introduced to Public Enemy, circa 1989. It isn’t hard to see their influence on Fold. PE showed me that you can create powerful musical statements by manipulating recorded voices over beats. Their fire and passion resonated with me. Several decades and many influences later, my personal connection with the Holocaust ended up being channeled into my work with Fold using the methods that Public Enemy taught me.
We define our role as amplifying humanitarian perspectives and critical reflections on today’s world. Forever War came about when confronted with the genocide happening in Gaza. Given my family history and the scenes we’re watching in real time that are all too reminiscent of the Holocaust, it was impossible not to feel a deep compassion for Palestinian & Israeli people along with anger at the Israeli, US and UK states.
All of the grief and anguish resurfaced in me; the suffering affected all of us. It became imperative that our next release was not only a response to this genocide but to help expose and amplify the fact that war is, as Major General Smedley D. Butler put it back in 1935, “a racket.” That behind it all is an industry driven to facilitate wars that go on as long as possible in order to sell as many weapons as possible and does not care how many lives it costs. As long as the military-industrial complex exists in its current form, the length and frequency of wars will continue to escalate.
The song features passages from Alice Walker, Lorraine Hansberry, and others. Could you share insights into the collaborative process of incorporating these diverse voices? How do you ensure that each voice contributes cohesively to the song's narrative?
The process was admittedly not very collaborative because I’m the one who does all of the research and editing of these voices, although we do have lots of informal discussions among ourselves that help shape our approach.
When the Israel / Palestine violence escalated I was monitoring responses across the media spectrum and one particular video by Mnar Adley stood out for being incredibly sharp, concise and broad in terms of her critique of the military-industrial complex as a whole. I immediately sent it to the group and everyone agreed that it was particularly on point.
Excerpts from that video became the core narrative of the track and as I mentioned earlier a few key elements were missing for me: dehumanisation and resolution. From having researched and trawled through audio archives over a 13 year period, I’ve become a walking encyclopaedia of quotes from all kinds of luminary figures that we’ve incorporated into 100+ recordings.
I wanted to bring back some of the passages we’ve used before both as a bridge connecting our previous work on these issues and as a way of affirming that things have been this way for a long time, during which the power of the military-industrial complex has only increased.
I first thought of Kurt Vonnegut, who we sampled on So It Goes from our debut LP, because he was a humanist, anti-war writer who survived the firebombing of Dresden as a captured US private behind enemy lines in a meat locker. His is the main ‘forever’ voice throughout the track. I already had an excerpt of Noam Chomsky lined up, in the end he’s only saying the word ‘war’ and its the one being scratched.
Alice Walker’s passage about “being killed by people who don’t feel” popped up shortly thereafter — we’d used that on Something Gives from our second album. Lorraine Hansberry’s musings on peace were an obvious choice having used part of the same passage on our tribute album to her in the short anti-war piece Nobody Fights. It was particularly satisfying to include “we get rid of all the little bombs and the big bombs” this time as it didn’t make it onto the other record.
I wrote and produced the music before adding any voices at all, which I don’t normally do. I wanted us to be 100% happy with the music as a standalone piece first. Having done that, I then spent several days gathering all of the words—which involved using Adobe Premiere Pro’s feature that extracts text from audio so you can search for specific words, OMG it saved me hundreds of hours —and then began assembling. I ended up with around 7 different voices saying the word ‘forever’ and another 10 saying the word ‘war.’
I already had everything we wanted the track to say and only had to figure out the order, density and which bits to repeat. ‘Forever war’ was always going to be the hook so that went in first; finding the best places to put it and the most satisfying recurring pattern, then adding in variations and scratching.
That set the pace of the speech and demarcated areas to fill in as verses with Mnar Adley mostly along with a bit of Alice Walker. Distilling the narrative is always the most difficult part, because the excerpts form a new, sub-narrative that also needs to keep the original’s integrity. Lorraine Hansberry’s closing statement fit the outro like a glove, and that was that. Set-up, conflict & resolution.
This process happened over a couple of weeks. We need a lot of time to sit with it, go away, come back, consult with each other, run it past a few trusted outsiders and tweak iteratively until we’re happy that it communicates effectively enough. We need to listen on a few good days as well as a few bad days to make absolutely sure. That was especially true here because we’re taking on such challenging issues and we really want to do justice to them.
After a pandemic-induced hiatus, FOLD is making a triumphant return to stages across the North. How does the band approach translating the intensity and complexity of a song like "Forever War" into a live performance, especially with the experimental debut of a live podcast hybrid show at Hyde Park Book Club?
We can’t recreate live every single part of the track exactly as it is on the record of course but we come reasonably close. In terms of how we translate the intensity and complexity of the song into a live performance, we have a process.
The intensity comes down to both intent and chemistry. Intentistry? We all have the same motivation to live in a world in which life is valued above profit so the intent is shared. The musical chemistry is like any intimate relationship in a way. As cheesy as it may sound, we love each other as friends and through a musical bond that brings us immense joy. Being able to collectively express our intent through that chemistry is one of the greatest joys there is.
The complexity is a very real challenge. Firstly, we never use a click track—for which other musicians consider us insane—because it keeps things more organic, fluid and dangerous on stage. Phil handles bass, Jimmy the drums and Sam the guitar. The rest falls to me which includes keyboard-based virtual instruments, other triggered sounds and speech samples (not to mention audience banter).
I use 3 midi controllers: a 16 pad Akai MPC style box, a 49 key semi-weighted keyboard (with additional pads) along with a 10 switch foot pedal board. Between these 3 devices I’m able to perform many different layers or parts, up to 3 simultaneously. On occasion when we can afford it, we also invite our extended line-up on stage: a 3 piece horn section arranged by the great Emma Johnson and a brilliant violinist named Kieran O’Malley.
The live podcast hybrid show (TBC) is something we’re really looking forward to. The idea is to have several segments along these lines:
15–20 minutes of live music
20–30 minutes of podcast (introduction to our story, what we do and how / why we do it, potentially a featured guest)
Another 20–30 minutes of live music
Inviting questions and facilitating a discussion with the audience for as long as we have time
The aim of this is both to enhance the experience of the music by informing & entertaining on additional levels and most of all to encourage audience participation and build community around free-ranging discussions. We really want to hear people’s perspectives and experiences to better inform our work.
It could go horribly wrong but podcasts have become ubiquitous and people like Blindboy are selling out large venues so perhaps it isn’t that crazy. Also, there are a lot of people that find a full hour or more of live music quite demanding on the senses so pacing it in this way might work better for them.
The lyrics and message of "Forever War" touch upon the military-industrial complex and the perpetuation of wars for profit. How do you envision the song making an impact in raising awareness about these issues, and what role do you see musicians playing in addressing social and political challenges through their art?
Just to first clarify our reasoning, we’re not saying that profit is the only motive or reason for war. That would be an oversimplification. However, it is arguably the largest driving factor and yet almost entirely hidden from mainstream discourse. For that reason most people are unaware of just how great a factor it really is. In the public-facing narratives of war, the military-industrial complex’s morally bankrupt profiteering is the elephant in the room and that’s what we’re drawing attention to.
The primary beneficiary of large-scale armed conflicts, in financial terms, is the defence industry and the US is the largest exporter of weapons globally. Taking the US as an example, when Israel began bombing Gaza stock prices of US corporations RTX (formerly Raytheon), Northrup Grumman and Lockheed Martin (et al) skyrocketed. The directors of these companies openly discuss how good for business these Israeli strikes are. It is the relationship between defence contractors and the US Department of Defence that makes this all possible.
“In 2022, the DOD purchased $44.5 billion from Lockheed Martin, $25.4 billion from Raytheon, and $21.5 billion from General Dynamics Corporation, according to the DOD website. Raytheon’s total revenue for 2022 was $67.1 billion and the US accounted for nearly 40% of that total, purchasing $25.4 billion from Raytheon. Lockheed’s relationship with the US keeps the company in business. In 2022, 73% of Lockheed’s total consolidated net sales were from the US Government, including 64% from the DOD, according to Lockheed’s 2022 annual report.”
—Sahara Sajjadiankhah, Business Journalism, December 15, 2023
The defence industry is also a major contributor to US election candidates. In the 2020 US election, Biden received $3,338,205 from the defence industry for his presidential campaign. Trump received $2,895,339. The total defence industry lobbying spend for that year was $111,977,492.
These facts help to illustrate the closeness of the relationship in the US between defence contractors, the Department of Defence and politicians which is what constitutes the US military-industrial complex. There are similar arrangements in the UK and many other countries with significant weapons exports.
The very thing that Eisenhower warned us about in his 1961 farewell address has come to pass: that if left unchecked the military-industrial complex would eventually produce unnecessarily vast amounts of arms and skew policy to ensure their sales. This is by no means the only industry to behave in this way, it is endemic in a system that values profit over life. Look at other industries like fossil fuels and big pharma.
Now, our releases typically reach thousands of people; we often get played on BBC 6 Music, Radio X and other national & regional radio stations. We get thousands of streams on Spotify, Apple Music, Soundcloud etc. So we have a modest platform but a platform nevertheless.
At a time like this, we feel it is absolutely crucial to set an example for both listeners and other artists—particularly as a group of mostly privileged white males—by using whatever platform we have to prioritise a clear stance against wars for profit from a well- reasoned, humanitarian perspective. We did not name countries, religions, policies or individuals. Instead, we named defence corporations.
Many are fearful of speaking out on these issues because they feel it’ll risk their livelihoods and reputations or simply cause too much offence. It is our hope that once they see others addressing such things openly, then they will speak out themselves.
We’re keeping two main audiences in mind among those most likely to hear our music.
One audience already knows what we’re talking about. For them we offer solace in a shared understanding of rather dark realities. That solace can be quite powerful, it helps to galvanise movements and build communities.
The second audience doesn’t yet know these things fully but wants to know and has heard some of the terms. For them we offer a spark, a jumping off point. Our aim is to ignite their curiosity to find out more.
Achieving a balance in the work that caters to both audiences equally is not easy. There has to be enough language to form a substantial argument but not so much that it becomes tedious and inaccessible. We hope we got the balance right this time, we’ll have to wait and see.
It is our firm belief that musicians always have huge potential to address social and political challenges through their work. Musicians can capture and reflect the zeitgeist to help us see ourselves more clearly. They can envision what a better world looks like and how we might get ourselves there. As I said earlier, we’ve defined our own role as amplifying humanitarian perspectives and critical reflections on today’s world. We don’t necessarily advocate that role for all musicians—there’s an important role in just entertaining people and creative self-expression of all kinds—but we would definitely like to see more of it right now.
Thanks so much for letting me ramble. We don’t pretend to have a monopoly on the truth, we’re just a group of people trying to make sense of this mad world, unpick the cognitive dissonance and join the dots. Come join some dots with us.
