Moby & The Void Pacific Choir, These Systems Are Failing At Circle V Festival.
Electronic music genius Moby has just released a new album entitled These Systems Are Failing as the debut album with his band The Void Pacific Choir. Shirley Ann Williams long time vegan, eco activist and music journalist tells more.
The album contains the variety of musical delights that we have come to expect from Moby. Many lyrics are ambiguous, they could be about human emotions, or his emotions, or those of other sentient beings as he blurs the boundaries with tracks such as Almost Loved , The Light Is Clear In My Eyes and the single Are You Lost In The World Like Me?
Moby told us: “A few years ago I saw Steve Cutts’ Man video and was amazed and blown away. I did some internet sleuthing and found his email address and humbly asked him to make a video for me. And, lucky me, he agreed. the video he made for Are You Lost In The World Like Me?’ is without question one of the best videos that’s ever been made for one of my songs.”
Since his huge success in the late 90s and 2000s Moby has set himself free to make whatever music he desires and for whatever reason he chooses. And his desire is to synergise his life’s mission as an Animal Rights and Ecosystem Activist with music to raise awareness of their plight and that of humanity. He states:
“Our best choices are killing us. All brokenness comes from separation. We’re destroying the world, and we’re still miserable. Fat, sick, stupid and anxious are no ways to live. These systems are failing. Let them fail. Change or die”.
These Systems Are Failing is to be debuted live at Moby’s very first Circle V Festival in Los Angeles on October 23rd there are some tickets still to be purchased. Other bands performing include Blaqk Audio and Cold Cave and a variety of speakers from sports stars to television personalities at the day long Vegan festival at the Fonda Theatre.
In the making of These Systems Are Failing, Moby has composed a punk album with electronic tones threading through it and providing the backbone beat. These are accompanied by gritty and suitably weird videos depicting the truth of Ecosystem destruction and the torture of farmed animals within the very real context of our daily existence.
Moby perceives the weirdness of the globalised culture of consumerism and the suffering and destruction it wreaks. He describes it well in music, lyrics and images. Watch the rainforests burn and the insanity of imprisoned animals as nature is mechanised, ravaged and corrupted to support mankind’s greed for meat, cosmetics and consumables.
Departing from a sleeve note manifesto Moby has created an under-water video, where suited and bare footed he delivers a powerful speech about Animal Rights and the Environment.
In the videos, particularly for the track Don’t Leave Me it is very clear that Moby empathises with the pain and suffering of the animals and through his music he gives them a voice. And this is exactly as he intended it to be. Even as we find the videos hard to watch or the music hard to hear, we still watch with morbid and horrified fascination as the animals speak through him. Contains deliberately disturbing scenes.
“Fight for me. My life’s gone from me. It’s all I can I can see. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me alone”.
This is not his usual modus operandus. Moby blogs almost daily about Animal rights on his Facebook page, but only once has he shown an image of a suffering animal. His preference is to post sweet images of animals already rescued and happily living out their lives in sanctuaries. But with this collection of songs and videos Moby has revealed the darkness that brought him to the Vegan lifestyle he has followed for 29 years.
Being Vegan is the way of kindness, gentleness and hope. It is often simply a passive protest against the use of our fellow sentient beings as commodities for human consumption. But Moby has decided to confront us with the truth and together with The Void Pacific Choir has made this record and created Circle V for the Animals, for the Ecosystem and to wake us all up to the truth. It is intended to open our eyes to the Armageddon of our time. And it does.
Feature by Shirley Ann Williams, October 2016
Tickets for Circle V can be purchased here: http://www.axs.com/events/314502/circle-v-a-music-activism-food-event-tickets/promopage/5675?skin=thefonda
