Hell EP by Ohio and West

This is my weird attempt at a political album. I have been kicking these songs around for a couple years now, at one point the thought was to collaborate with Dillon and make one twenty minute vaporwave song. I took another pass at these songs in January 2020 and made them even weirder, and wrote one new song in September 2020 before releasing it. I had the thought to include the Star Spangled Banner recorded in one take without practicing, but Allison said that would be annoying.

Track Details:

Name Him Freedom is a mean-spirited track mocking right wing folks who seem so delighted at how shitty things are. The protagonists of this song are also in the under class, just like all of us, but are content to feel something that isn't there. Namely, a greater sense of freedom that comes from seeing minorities being violently oppressed; a federal Government that flaunts open corruptions; and a general sense of despair washing over everything.

Awakening is an optimistic song about how our current hell-scape may have awoken a sense of injustice in the populace. The spoken word recording is a public domain recording of Woodrow Wilson accepting the Democratic Nomination for President in August 1912. I honestly just picked it for the closing line, but all the text is prescient.

Down to the River is the protest song relating to how white terrorists are murdering people in our streets. Whether they be police officers, unidentified agents of the Federal Government, or simply white nationalist, the odds are whites are murdering minorities and leftists in a city near you! There are no moderate Republicans, they love this. Every white guy in a Ford F-150 dreams of mowing you down in the cross walk.

American is another optimistic one, I guess. It would be ignorant to ignore the violence, genocide, and slavery that built this country. Our modern moment is just an echo of those horrors. What matters is how we progress.

Thanks for listening!