Nilina’s post got me thinking of my favorite political songs, one of which is “Peaceful Protest” by Dragging an Ox through Water, a.k.a. Portland noise-folk artist Brian Mumford. Not a lot of hope in the tune, at least until the last line, wherein Mumford suggests direct action and/or Ghandi-style transformation (”Be the change that you want to see in the world,” right?) as a means to changing an oppressive system.

This particular stripped-down recording of the tune comes via ex-WW intern Jim Sandberg’s back-in-the-day radio show on KWVA in Eugene (yeah, it’s admittedly a bit inbred), and despite one little hiccup at the end (listen close and you can hear them singing through a giggle), it’s one of the prettiest recordings from the on-air date. The female voice you hear is Martha Mosqueda, who now fronts Portland power-pop outfit Kiki. I’ve been carrying around a well-loved/scratched-up CDR copy of the five-song set for years now, and finally realized it was high time someone else heard them.

Sneak peaks from DAOTW’s upcoming release, Tropics of Phenomenon, are currently available on Dragging an OxSpace. Shit is deep.

Peaceful Protest:

Download audio file (Peaceful Protest.mp3)

Because the tune is so short, I’ve also included “Hill of Dirt” from the same session.

Hill of Dirt:

Download audio file (Hill of Dirt.mp3)

p.s. I didn’t ask Mumford permission to post either of those songs. I hope he doesn’t mind, as these certainly aren’t exemplary of his usual highly layered sound. I still love this older work too, though, and we may just have to post the whole never-released EP on LocalCut at some point.

Links:
DAOTW site, featuring free downloads!
Dragging an OxSpace

Photo by me, from last year’s Best New Bands photo shoot.