Hello Death have a new album on the horizon, For Those With Many Hearts, and today they released their first song from it, a typically chilling hymn called "Tin House." As with most new songs that artists are releasing online today, the timing isn't accidental. It's the band's way of pushing back against what songwriter Nathaniel Heuer calls the "racist, sexist, narcissistic, and self-serving coward" who is about to become the President of the United States of America.
Below you can stream the song and read Heuer's open letter accompanying the track in its entirety.
TestimonyFrom a Tin House
The police are executing people in our streets. The police are murdering Blackand Brown people in front of us and are blaming the victims. The media islargely enforcing false narratives. Let’s face the facts. This is not an undercurrentof a race war. The talk of war is rhetoric that enables capitalists to controlour fears and continue to profit from our bodies. Even the police should havepicked up on the fact that theyare only protecting profiteers. The real narrative is that the majority ofpeople are sick and tired of the racist, classist, and sexist system.
It’s time for us to breathe deeply and see, for what it is, what we have become:suspicious, selfish, and callous. It’s time for us to breathe deeply and seewhat we can be. Most of us only get to move through this world once. Decide whoyou will be. Be ready to bear witness and to testify against injustice. It’s avery small burden for those of us with lighter skin.In April 2014 Dontre Hamilton was murdered by police officer Christopher Manney in RedArrow Park, in downtown Milwaukee. He was frisked against protocol andthreatened with the officer’s baton before being shot 14 times. No criminalcharges have been brought against Manney, though he was fired from the force inOctober of that year for instigating the conflict.
I wrote Tin House to help process my feelings of disgust and anger at ournation’s continued institutional racism, to help process my white guilt, tohelp process my sadness and denial, and to try to understand what it would feellike to be constantly put-upon by the false notions of strangers. We now livein a tin house. Each single drop echoes.
They arerecorded and played back again and again. History will no longer be written bythe oppressors. We all hear the rain in Sanford, Chicago, New York, Milwaukee,Minneapolis, Ferguson, Baton Rouge, Dallas, Oakland…every city in the USA. Andstill it continues.
On January 20, 2017, a racist, sexist, narcissistic, and self-serving cowardwill become the President of the United States of America. Of the total U.S.population, 82% of Americans did not vote for him. My hope is that thesetragedies will serve to galvanize this vast majority of people who understand thatto seek a better life means seeking a better life for all.
In January of 2016 the Dakota Access Pipeline was approved despite the lack ofany thorough environmental assessment. The proposed oil pipeline would crossthe Missouri River less than one mile from the Standing Rock Reservation,risking contamination to the immediate area and to the millions of people whorely on its water. In April the Sacred Stone Camp was established to protectthe water. Since that time, the movement to protect the water has grown.Militarized police have reacted to peaceful prayer and protest with the use ofrubber bullets, mace, water cannons, and concussion grenades. They chose toaggressively push aside the rights of our fellow citizens in order to push theagenda of a private corporation acting illegally on land that rightfullybelongs to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe.
This is small gesture, but please accept this song as a gift, and considerdonating to the following organizations:
www.mothersforjusticeunited.org/p/about-mothers-for-justice.html
www.aclu.org/know-your-rights
standwithstandingrock.net/donate/
At the least, I hope this song can provide some time for quiet contemplation,at best, a way to help process the wrongs and call for a better tomorrow.
Sincerely,
Nathaniel Heuer
