Rupa & The April Fishes - Growing Upward '2019

Tracks list

Sowing Seeds: Rupa and the April Fishes’ songs of hope for troubled times
Rupa and the April Fishes’ new album, Growing Upward, is music for the
movements of our time (release: April 19 on Electric Gumbo Radio Music). Anthems
of resilience, spitfire commentary, and collaborations with indigenous artists
make up an album that resounds with joy, love, and transformation.

Borderless ensemble Rupa and the April Fishes has always been rooted in
activism—in subject matter and practice. Previous albums have taken on
love, loss, and xenophobia in the Bush years and the plight of migrants crossing
borders. After a live album was hit with a licensing claim, Rupa faced up to
media giant Warner in the legal battle that affirmed the public domain status of
“Happy Birthday” and returned $14 million to artists.

There’s a new sense of urgency on their sixth album to match the current
political and ecological climate. Its 12 songs took shape over a seven-year span
as frontwoman Rupa, a doctor and social thinker as well as a musician, underwent
experiences that transformed her: providing medical care to hunger strikers
protesting police killings in San Francisco; treating Water Protectors
confronting state-supported violence at Standing Rock, collaborating with
Lakota/Dakota healers and leaders to decolonize medicine by creating a clinic in
North Dakota, becoming a mother. “All those intense experiences are
reflecting on the same crisis.” Rupa reflects, “Everything we face
is interconnected: the international rise of fascism, the festering of American
racism, the increase in police violence, the ongoing oppression of indigenous
people, the imminent threat of catastrophic climate change.” The result is
an album of impassioned songs energized by Rupa and the April Fishes’
global perspective that offers strength and solace to those already in the fight
and a call to action for everyone else.

Multicultural fusion? Global indie rock? It’s hard to pin down the sound
of Rupa and the April Fishes, and that’s how Rupa likes it. “I call
it purposeful boundlessness. I don’t strive for a style.” Their
eclectic sound is shaped by a multitalented string section (Misha Khalikulov on
cello, Matt Szemela on violin), diverse rhythms (Aaron Kierbel on drums, JHNO on
organ, Daniel Fabricant and Todd Sickafoose on bass), and soaring trumpet (Mario
Alberto Silva). The common ground in which each song sprouts is Rupa’s
distinctive, expressive vocal style, ranging from ethereal heights to low earthy
tones.

One label that does sit comfortably with Rupa is “Liberation Music,”
a designation bestowed by Gil Scott Heron, the legendary spoken word poet and
godfather of rap. When Rupa spent time with him not long before his death, they
spoke about post-national identity, and Heron asked her to contribute to
America’s dialogue about race. “What I learned from him was not
being afraid to expand my sense of genre,” Rupa recalls.
“It’s my job to communicate honestly and passionately using
whatever palette I have, to create a sound identity that exists beyond
borders.”

Responses to Heron’s challenge shape the album’s most powerful
songs. “Yelamu (We Are Still Here),” an electronic track produced by
Rupa and Damion Gallegos, amplifies the voices of marginalized peoples. The
rhythmic spine of the song comes from radical Chicano performance artist
Guillermo Gomez-Peña reciting a “Declaration of Human Rights from The
Other San Francisco,” co-written with Rupa. The words “we are still
here” spoken in many indigenous languages create a counterpoint. A diverse
cohort of activists lend their voices: Kalamaokaaina Niheu (Kingdom of Hawaii),
Tasos Sagris (Greece), Antonio M (Comanche/Otomi/Costanoan), and Tipiziwin
Tolman (Lakota Nation). “It was important to me to collect voices from all
places we’ve visited,” says Rupa, “and to bear witness to the
astounding resiliency of the people we’ve met along the way.”

Listening to and singing with indigenous people is a taproot that feeds Growing
Upward. The anthem “Frontline” was written at the request of the
grandmothers at Standing Rock. Rupa had already written “Water” and
released a recording online in 2005 when Ojibwe matriarch Sharon Brass invited
Rupa to record an indigenized version. Rupa collaborated with a circle of native
women in British Columbia to create a new track, “Water Song,” that
layers their voices— howling, chanting, and serenely singing in languages
from along the Pacific Coast— over the haunting sounds of four-foot-tall
gongs played by guest artist Karen Stackpole.

The album’s title track Growing Upward explores what reconnecting to
indigenous perspectives sounds like. “This song grew out of talking with
indigenous people who haven’t lost the capacity to hear nonhuman
voices,” Rupa explains. “I tried to imagine what it feels like to be
a dandelion seed germinating under asphalt and breaking through.” The
track showcases Rupa’s versatile vocal and verbal style, opening with a
full-throated sinuous melody that climbs like vine tendrils over a rich sonic
undergrowth of strings and marimba. Then a rhythmic break has Rupa reciting
tabla bol and rapping about contemporary threats to the wellbeing of seeds and
humans alike. Video artist Zen Cohen has directed a powerful music video to be
released on April 1, the perfect date for a band named after a French April
Fool’s Day tradition.

What Rupa and the April Fishes offer with Growing Upward—both musically
and lyrically—is a hopeful map to a better future. “The central
idea for this album is encountering indigenous cultures, collaborating, and
learning humility from them,” Rupa elaborates. “Confronting past and
present wrongs with humility doesn’t have to be dismal or miserable; it
can be full of compassion and joy. When we look back with kindness and
open-heartedness, we can go forward in the right way and correct past
wrongs.”

Artist Mona Caron, internationally known for multi-story murals celebrating the
rebellious resilience of weeds and creating art for the climate justice
movement, gives visual form to the album with cover art of twelve sprouting
seedlings in a mandala-like circle, each growing through one of the April Fishes
or their collaborators against a backdrop of the crises we face: state violence,
petrochemical pollution, devastating weather events, media manipulated by
nationalist entities. The image is not mere metaphor: the album will be released
in a plastic-free form as twelve seed packets so listeners can grow their own
medicinal plants, reawakening their own connection with the earth.
“We’re in a challenging time,” remarks Rupa, “but when
you look at the power of these seeds, you can’t do anything but
hope.”

Tracklist:
01. Rupa & The April Fishes - Growing Upward
02. Rupa & The April Fishes - Frontline
03. Rupa & The April Fishes - Heathen
04. Rupa & The April Fishes - Where You From
05. Rupa & The April Fishes - Rain Come Home
06. Rupa & The April Fishes - Water Song
07. Rupa & The April Fishes - Lay My Head Down
08. Rupa & The April Fishes - Stay
09. Rupa & The April Fishes - Eena Meena Deeka
10. Rupa & The April Fishes - I Dont Want to Get Arrested
11. Rupa & The April Fishes - Stolen Land
12. Rupa & The April Fishes, Guillermo Gomez Peña - Yelamu (We Are Still
Here)

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