On 10 October an appeal hearing in Russia will decide whether the two-year sentences handed down to three members of punk activists Pussy Riot for their anti-Putin protest in a Moscow cathedral should stand or whether they should be amended (according to their legal team, the best case scenario is they’ll be cut by six months). Today, as part of a Global Day of Action, rallies and marches will take place in over 38 cities across the world.
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While their much-publicised protests and subsequent arrests have been given support from a host of music royalty – from Madonna to Paul McCartney to Sting – it’s fallen to political art-poppers MEN, aka Le Tigre’s JD Samson (an active member and spokesperson of the Free Pussy Riot movement) and a collective of collaborators, to come up with the soundtrack to their political struggles in their absence. The fairly self-explanatory Let Them Out Or Let Me In (key lyric: “30 seconds of protest just got you two whole years in jail”), is more punk-funk than pure punk, with filtered guitars gliding over a twitching beat. Perhaps the most powerful aspect of the song, however, is the video, which features edited footage of the band’s political protests intercut with footage of historical political protests and movements.
There’s more information at www.freepussyriot.org/news.