Deep Dive: Fold — Forever War

War has always been with us and seems to be increasingly normalised in the 21^st century, something that the influential Leeds-based Fold collective tackle on Forever War. It’s mix of beats, riffs, and reportage captures much of the complexity of the issue in under three minutes. Seth Mowshowitz, the founder of Fold, told us more about the track as part of our ongoing Deep Dive series.

Genesis of the song and lyrics

We want to respond as best we can with empathy and reason to the horrors unfolding in Gaza, Ukraine and elsewhere. When you look behind the veil of war, you discover that the military-industrial complex has become extremely powerful. It manufactures unnecessarily vast amounts of weapons and enables as many endless armed conflicts as possible by skewing government policy in order to sell the weapons.

Publicly stated justifications for these armed conflicts deliberately conceal this underlying truth. So Forever War calls out the military-industrial complex for enabling endless wars in the name of profit, even when it means abetting genocide and other horrific war crimes. To us this is the elephant in the room and the only way to stop war is to take the profit out of war.  

Instrumentation and recording

I [Seth] channelled my own history into this track: the ancestral trauma of losing half my extended family in the Holocaust, living in New York on 9/11 and in London during the 2005 bombings. Both the writing and production are intended to evoke war. The main theme and overall structure are cycles within cycles of tension and resolution like the way people describe their dread during bombing raids.

Many war-related sounds are layered in the track: a ‘ceasefire now’ chant from recent protests, distant bombs exploding, air raid sirens, screaming crowds, etc. The big distorted guitar bends echo the bombs, the swirling mass of violins echo the sirens. Tons of research and editing went into the words. There’s a council of voices speaking the ‘forever war’ hook including Kurt Vonnegut, Noam Chomsky, bell hooks and others. Mint Press CEO Mnar Adley voices the main narrative, Alice Walker adds a short verse about dehumanisation and Lorraine Hansberry closes with a vision of peace.

Where does it fit within your body of work?  

Speaking for myself, I’ve come to realise that I make music both to soothe my own neurodivergent brain and to express empathy, aside from all the intellectual bits. It makes sense that our music would appeal to people with similar neurology and we’d really love to find more of those people. For all of us in the group, at this point in our lives the energy is also different.

Our intention is less to bash people over the head than to create a welcoming space in which to reflect on the words and concepts in the tracks. That said, Forever War is also a response to things happening right now in the world that demand an urgent response. It is risky speaking out against war amidst such a toxic discourse, but we see an opportunity to take a stand using the modest platform that we’ve built over the years consistently speaking uncomfortable truths. In that sense Forever War is the culmination of our entire body of work.

What are you up to in the coming months?

Expanding the live show. After a 3.5-year, pandemic-imposed hiatus we’re so happy to finally be back on stage. We headlined a couple of lovely gigs at the end of last year and our extended 8-piece line-up with horn section and violin will make its triumphant return at The Old Woollen (Leeds) on March 21.

We’re also in talks with Hyde Park Book Club around the debut of an experimental live podcast hybrid show where we balance segments of live music with segments of discussion between ourselves, guests, and the audience. What could possibly go wrong? We’re also reaching out to other cities and applying for festivals.

Aside from that, we’re angling for a long weekend recording session somewhere in a remote cottage so we can pretend to be Queen or Led Zeppelin for a bit.

Forever War can be downloaded on Bandcamp and is streaming on all major platforms including Apple Music, YouTube, and Spotify. You can learn more about Fold and their music, as well as upcoming events, by checking out their Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram feeds.