TRAИƧA: a project for our time, part 2
Note: This is the second of a three part, long-form feature on the TRAИƧA project. You can find a ‘prequel’, which sets a context for these TRAИƧA pieces here:
The following piece was part 1 of my reflections on the TRAИƧA project itself, which you can find HERE:
Part 2 follows below, and part 3 soon after…
Introduction: The story so far
A few months ago, I embarked on this feature project highlighting LGBTQ+ artists and the musical ecosystems they inhabit, influence and thrive in. Near the end of 2024, I’d come across the epic TRAИƧA album project curated by Dust Reid and Massima Bell and released by the Red Hot Organization, which has a history of releasing music supporting LGBTQ+ music and causes, going back to the original Red Hot and Blue Cole Porter truibute album in 1990.
I have always been aware that queerness and gender non-conformity is an integral facet of the arts in general, and popular music in particular. This probably stretches back centuries, but is particularly well documented with the growth of recorded music in the past century or so. In my first feature piece (linked to here) I tracked some of the seminal artists and social contexts that have been around during my lifetime. However, there is so much more to explore, and this wasn’t at all intended as a comprehensive history; more as a way of setting some personal context for the TRAИƧA pieces and future explorations.
There’s an irony in the timing of both the TRAИƧA album release, and my writing about it, however. TRAИƧA emerged out of two contradictory strands and trends in Western culture:
First, a growing acceptance of non-binary, gender non-conforming and trans lives and experiences. Language, ‘pronouns’ and the growing visibility of queer culture within the ‘mainstream’ (TV, film, music etc) seemed to indicate a more open, accepting and inclusive approach to sexuality and gender issues – alongside anti-racism and evolving strands of feminism – particularly in younger age groups.
Second, however, a growing backlash. With its roots in fundamental Christian opposition to homosexuality in general, trans people became targets for new waves of moral panic – often articulated alongside opposition to abortion and the promotion of traditional gender roles in family units. What made this particularly insidious, however, was that the Christian right was joined in its anti-trans and queer rhetoric by groups claiming to be feminist, including prominent individuals whose political affiliations had previously been left of centre. In the UK, this pincer movement led to the High Court judgement on legal definition of a ‘woman’ (that explicitly excluded trans women). Meanwhile, in the US, the Trump administration pushed back on trans rights – in tandem with its authoritarian attacks on a range of groups and communities.
It is in this context that TRAИƧA exists. And against this backdrop the music, perhaps, matters more. In saying ‘Here We Are’ through their music, trans and non-binary artists stand up and make sure their voices are heard. And in saying ‘We Stand With You’, LGBTQ+ allies make their voices clear about where they stand in this complex and interconnected area of equality and inclusion.
There’s so much more that will unfold in coming weeks and months. Perhaps the light shining on this issue may lead to more nuanced and mature considerations of gender and sexuality in various areas of public life in the future. Or maybe there will be a need for further solidarity, new alliances to be forged and new campaigns to be waged in defence of oppressed and marginalised groups and individuals.
In the here and now, I’ve been immersed in the TRAИƧA project as a profound and beautiful musical journey, one that flows from the first chapter, Womb of the Soul, to the final, eighth chapter, Reinvention. In Part 1, I listened and responded to chapters 1 to 4. In this piece, Part 2, I am writing about chapters 5 and 6. Part 3, coming soon, will cover chapters 7 and 8.
As a reminder, you can find out more about the project from the curators in the video below:
Listening to and purchasing the music
If you want some pre-selected highlights there is a five track TRAИƧA Select sampler vinyl record, which comes ‘packaged’ with the full digital album. It includes five highlight tracks including Young Lion by Sade Abu (find that HERE on YouTube). It’s a good way to get hold of the full album and support the project, as the full 6 record vinyl box is a good bit more expensive! If you do want the full package though– a gorgeous and rare thing indeed – it’s available (still on pre-order, I think) from https://shop.redhot.org
You can find the sampler vinyl + digital album HERE on Bandcamp.
There’s also a full album visualiser stream on YouTube and below, which will help you orient the TRAИƧA project:
The TRAИƧA project vision
Here’s a reminder of Red Hot’s vision for TRAИƧA:
It takes time for new worlds to be born – time and space and slow, sustained belief. It takes courage to grieve the worlds that died before this moment, and those that might have arrived but never did. TRAИƧA, the new compilation from storied activist music production organization Red Hot, spotlights the gifts of many of the most daring, imaginative trans and non-binary artists working today. It also softens the edges of the world we know, and invokes powerful dreams of the futures that might one day thunder from its cracks.
OK… Deep breath… here goes… part 2
TRAИƧA, a 46-track prismatic spiritual journey: Chapters 5 & 6: Grief & Acceptance.
Chapter V – Grief
This chapter begins, appropriately, with beautiful, evocative orchestral electronica by Jerrilynn Patton, the artist known as Jlin: a rumbling bassline and a sparkling keyboard, that opens into Moor Mother’s poem, We've Been Through So Much and then into a loose harp-accompanied song, My Name by Kara Jackson, Ahya Simone and David Longstreth of indie band, The Dirty Projectors.
By now we know we’re in the territory of grief and loss, but also of celebration and discovery. Loss and remembrance is also the theme of the third track in the chapter. This is a special one – a version of Low’s song Point of Disgust, that was originally sung by Mimi Parker from the Low album, Trust, from 2002. Mimi died in 2022 from ovarian cancer and this song is partly a tribute to her by husband, Alan Sparhawk and Perfume Genius, aka Michael Alden Hadreas.
There’s also a very special bonus live version of the song sung by Mimi Parker below.1
once, I was lost/ to the point of disgust I had in my sight/ lack of vision lack of light/ I fell hard/ I fell fast mercy me/ it'll never last then, in the dust/ all the things we discussed/ were thrown to the wind so at last/ we begin/ 'cuz we fall hard we fall fast/ mercy me/ it'll never last
All the songs in Chapter 5 are really strong. The next, by Lomelda and More Eaze is a lush and vulnerable cover of In Another Life, by Sandro Perri. The original is from Perri’s 2018 album of the same name, with the full track reaching nearly 25 minutes! This is followed by another collaboration between Teddy Geiger and Yaeji on Pink Ponies, an original track that, like many on this album, combines original electronica with intriguing vocals.
However, for me, Yaya Bey’s classy soul ballad, A Survivor's Guilt, that completes this chapter is one of the standouts of the whole project. It’s a deeply emotional song with a edge of hopefulness and a beautiful piano accompaniment that just keeps it simple…
Talking about the song in https://www.them.us/story/transa-compilation-album-perfume-genius-yaeji-teddy-geiger-interview she says:
I’m someone that’s genderqueer. There is often a way that we fail at gender all the time because there is an expectation of what a woman should be and what a man should be and we never meet those expectations. What I admire about the trans community is from the outside looking in, they seem to live expectation-less — and I think we all get to, if we pay close attention to what they are exemplifying is possible.
There’s a live session version of the song that was recorded at The Bridge Studio for Stephen Colbert’s Late Show below. You can choose either the Facebook or Instagram links below, or the TRAИƧA album YouTube version here:
Facebook link: https://fb.watch/AbWs92xTwy/ - (from Stephen Colbert’s Late Show)
Instagram link of the same performance:
Chapter VI – Acceptance
Acceptance is the longest chapter in the project – eight tracks – and that seems apt, as acceptance is an essential phase of healing – or being or becoming – however we describe our human journey.
As we travel from our beginnings (as in the ‘Womb of the Soul’, the first TRAИƧA chapter), we might realise that all is not as it seems, or even how it should be. We have to get to a point when we can accept ourselves, and the reality of the world. It’s a hard thing to do, because the human world is not fair or just – and it can take us a long time to find our allies and our chosen families.
That is to say, this chapter is a life lesson…
It begins, as many of the chapters do, with atmospheric electronica and poetry. Just Last Night is by musician Helado Negro (aka Roberto Carlos Lange) and poet, Eileen Myles. It’s such a short piece but carries one of my favourite lyrics of the whole project:
Everyone was/ Just walking/ Backwards/ Into the/ Room So we're/ Just/ Like joining/ The dance I can/ Do that/ And there/ My eyes/ Are closing Yeah/ Let your/ Eyes/ Close It's a closet/ It's a rehab/ It's a homeless/ Shelter Okay okay/ But everyone/ Just/ Keep/ Moving/ Backwards That's it/ Yeah/ It feels/ Good Let your/ Eyes/ Close
Then there’s a cover of a song by someone who seems to be a spiritual mother to many of the artists here: Sinead O’Connor. Her song, Feel So Different (which begins with the moving Serenity Prayer), is the first track from her classic 1990 album, I Do Not Want What I Haven't Got – still one of my favourites… Here it is performed in a duet by Sharon Van Etten and Ezra Furman. Tragically, just two weeks after they recorded the vocals for this rendition, news came in about Sinéad's death in July 2023.
(Find a live version of Sinead singing Feel So Different in the bonuses below)2
This is followed by the tiny and sweet Mourning Dove by Gia Margaret, and the downtempo alt-folk track Feel Better by Adrianne Lenker (the lead singer in Big Thief). Both are original compositions, and lovely tracks. However they feel a bit like interludes next to the song that follows, an extraordinary cover of Any Other Way (a William Bell composition), sung by Canadian singer-songwriter, musician, and activist, Allison Russell and accompanied by harpist/multi-instrumentalist Ahya Simone. The link to the TRAИƧA project is that the song was also released as a single (in 1963) by trailblazing Black trans soul singer Jackie Shane.
I’ll feature Jackie Shane in a future article but you can find a trailer for a documentary film about her in the bonuses below. 3
TRAИƧA, by its very nature gives space for recognising past artists – like O’Connor, Shane and others – and so there is a good sprinkling of interesting covers that, in turn, unearth interesting people from queer musical history. One of these is Judee Sill, a troubled artist and one of the almost-made-its of the 60s and 70s. Her song Down Where The Valleys Are Low is covered on the album by Asher White, Eli Winter and Caroline Rose. It is followed by TM, a repetitive, winding, meditative piece for voice and sax by Fleet Foxes, Cole Pulice and Lynn Avery: a cover of Charles Lloyd’s Beach-Boysey tribute to Transcendental Meditation from 1972.
The final track on Chapter 6, Querude (Cherub) however, feels like a very different kind of cover. There are a number of versions of this song on the internet, however this is a totally reworked version of this famous bolero tune by Puerto Rican composer, Pedro Flores by Puerto Rican trans artists AV María, SKY and Belina Rose, and produced by Seba Otero. I love their reimagining of this – even as it keeps the heart of the classical Latin vibe from the original. Its inclusion is a tribute to the quality and vision of the curation of TRAИƧA by Massima Bell and Dust Reid.
That’s your lot for part two of this extended three-part article on the TRAИƧA project… but check out the bonuses below…
Coming soon…
TRAИƧA, a 46-track prismatic spiritual journey, Part 3: Chapters 7 - 8: Liberation & Reinvention.
Notes and bonus tracks
Bonus 1: Mimi Parker was one of the two leading parts of Low, with her husband Alan Sparhawk. She died in 2022 from ovarian cancer. Low were an amazing band with a great back catalogue to explore. Speaking to them.us, Alan said: “[Trans issues] are issues that are close to my heart, and they were issues that Mimi and I talked about a lot. To be asked to be part of something that maybe some people at first would think that we would be outside of that world was really an honor. I’m really glad that Mim’s song is part of this because she was not a very vocal person about different things, but I know her and I knew what she cared about, and these were subjects that were dear to her heart.” This is a beautiful, emotive live version of Point of Disgust sung by the late Mimi Parker:
Bonus 2: Sinead O’Connor was a total icon. You just have to watch this bonus video from 1990 to see that. She was also a queer ally and a supporter of LDBTQ+ rights: https://pridesource.com/article/how-sinead-oconnor-embraced-the-queer-community-and-her-own-flexible-sexuality It’s why she appeared on the original Red Hot and Blue compilation for AIDS research, and why she inspires so many queer and trans people today. She was an outsider, and stood up as one. She wore her trauma, not as armour, but as validation. She died in 2023. Here’s to her… and to her memory and legacy.
Bonus 3: I found out about Jackie Shane through my research around the track on the TRAИƧA album, Any Other Way by Allison Russell and Ahya Simone. It’s a cover of a song written and originally recorded by soul legend, William Bell, but here it’s associated with trans soul pioneer, Jackie Shane. There’s a 2024 film about her which I’m going to search out and watch in the coming weeks, but here’s a short feature on her from the ‘A Grrrl's Two Sound Cents’ YouTube channel, plus the trailer for the film so you can do your own deep dive. You can find out more at https://museumoftoronto.com/collection/no-other-way-the-story-of-jackie-shane/