8 Tracks: Of War and Peace by Truth & Lies Music

From their 1974 opus ‘Winter In America’ on Strata-East, Gil and Brian Jackson give us a hauntingly beautiful appeal to the selfishness of people within their community. Drenched in the warmth of a Fender Rhodes and upright bass, the minimal instrumentation leaves the sky open for Gil’s emotional plea. An intimate masterpiece.

Although not as relentlessly white hot as the more acclaimed title track from his 1977 ‘Zombie’ LP, ‘Mr Follow Follow’ managed to insult every single soldier in the ruling Nigerian military regime with his corruscating analysis of their lack of empathy and morality. All over the gentlest and funkiest of afrobeat grooves

Alice Coltrane’s quest for peace and enlightenment through her lifetime’s devotional practice and musical output is one of the 20th Century’s wonders. From her early spiritual jazz masterpieces on Verve, to this, the cathedral-sized music she created for the devotees of her Californian ashram, Alice will make you feel one with the Universe.

Wrap your head in gold foil and hope for the best. That may have been Sun Ra’s approach to dealing with nuclear fallout, but the space travelling jazzers from Saturn wrote the classic ‘Nuclear War’ at the height of the Cold War. A simple meditation on what might happen if you ‘Press that button’ summed up a generation fearful of nuclear destruction.

The whole ‘American Intelligence’ album which this track is taken from has a fierce power and intensity that makes it perhaps Parrish’s masterpiece. The song has a haunting emotional quality that carries a tension that would not be out of place in a film called ‘Make No War’.

The Nigerian born early don of synths knocked out this early electronic synth classic in 1980. While Disco is perhaps less associated with anti-war protest songs than say Jazz and
Rock‘n’Roll, Nigeria, a country blighted with corruption and military regimes in the 1970’s birthed plenty of great protest music. ‘Why Go To War’ is perhaps one of the most distinctive due to its simple lyrical message over a tight, but totally dancefloor groove.

Bob Dylan allegedly described this as the greatest protest song ever (pre-1970s obviously) and maybe in 1969 this was the case. A brutal lyric about a telegram received by the mother of a GI over a cooking early Reggae riddim by the legendary Jimmy Cliff.

“It was just the next day his mother got a telegram
It was addressed from Vietnam
Now mistress Brown, she lives in the USA
And this is what she wrote and said
Don’t be alarmed, she told me the telegram said
But mistress Brown your son is dead”

The Invisible Orchestra are a 16-piece ensemble combining soul, Latin, deep funk, jazz and big band with huge orchestral sweeps, Afrobeat, Arabic punk, hip-hop and brass-heavy dance music. Truth & Lies’ Ex-Friendly and Bensoundsystem transform ‘War’ into an epic soundscape reminiscent of the Walker Brothers on a 21st Century dance floor.