From the exquisite album “Nommo” by Slovo, which a couple of summers ago I couldn’t stop listening to and which always sucks me in. Slovo is a project of Dave Randall’s and there have been two releases so far along with various remixes.

The vocals on this one are by Kirsty Hawkshaw, whose voice I’d heard for a long time without ever really knowing who she was, on account of those famous backward samples from Opus III on Orbital’s “Halcyon”…

Some really beautiful visuals on this too.

I always think of this paired with one of their versions of “Empires Fall,” since I edited the two together for a personal compilation once. Can’t locate it at the moment, but it’s the one with just the 7/4 guitars of “Weebles Fall” and the Charlie Chaplin sample from The Great Dictator (1940) layered over it. The one that goes (and this seems somehow appropriate to quote today post-election):

I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor, that’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone if possible – Jew, Gentile, black man, white. We all want to help one another; human beings are like that. We don’t want to hate and despise one another.

In this world there’s room for everyone and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life could be free and beautiful. But we have lost the way. Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goosestepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed but we have shut ourselves in. Our knowledge has made us cynical, and our cleverness hard and unkind.

We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery, we need humanity. More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities life will be violent, and all will be lost. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world, millions of despairing men, women, and little children, victims of a system that makes men torture, and imprison innocent people.

To those who can hear me I say: do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed, the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress, the hate of men who will pass, and dictators die. And the power they took from the people will return to the people, and so long as men die, liberty will never perish…