18/01/2026
To the people who keep accusing us of being too political in our content.
This Is When We Need You Most: A Call to Anti-Fascist Artists
-duvychaos
There's a particular weight to watching the world darken in real time. Those of us who've always lived in the shadows, who've found beauty in darkness and meaning in melancholy, we recognize this feeling. We've been here before in the music, in the history, in the warnings our favorite bands screamed into microphones decades ago.
But here's what I want you to understand, every artist, every band, every creative soul who's ever written a lyric about fighting back, who's ever screamed against injustice, who's ever put anger and defiance into sound: This is your moment. This is when we need you most.
The Power You Hold
You might not feel powerful. You might be looking at streaming numbers that barely register, playing to thirty people in a basement venue, wondering if anyone's even listening. But I need you to understand something fundamental about art and resistance: Every movement that ever pushed back against fascism had a soundtrack.
The punks didn't wait for permission. Dead Kennedys didn't check the political climate before recording "N**i Punks F**k Off." Crass didn't wonder if it was the right time to be angry. Rage Against the Machine didn't soften their message for broader appeal. They wrote, they screamed, they played, and they gave voice to the fury and fear that people were feeling but couldn't articulate.
You are part of that lineage. Whether you know it or not, whether you feel worthy of it or not.
What Art Does That Nothing Else Can
Political organizing is crucial. Protests are necessary. Voting matters. But art does something different, something that can't be replicated by any other form of resistance. Art makes people feel less alone.
When someone hears your song about fighting back, about refusing to submit, about finding strength in darkness they realize they're not the only one who's terrified and furious. They realize they're not crazy for refusing to normalize what's happening. They find the courage they need to keep going for one more day.
That bedroom producer making harsh noise about state violence? That goth band writing about resisting authoritarianism? That darkwave artist processing their grief and rage into sound? You're creating survival tools. You're making the soundtrack that will help people endure, resist, and remember who they are.
The Historical Moment We're In
Look at every period when fascism rose: there was always music fighting back. The protest songs of the civil rights era. The punk explosion against Thatcher and Reagan. The industrial and EBM scenes processing post-Soviet and post-industrial trauma. Hip-hop giving voice to communities under siege.
Dark music has always understood what polite society refuses to acknowledge: that there are real monsters in this world, and sometimes you have to scream about them.
We're entering a period that will be defined by who chose to speak and who chose silence. History is watching. More importantly, the people who need your voice right now are listening, hoping you'll give them the words they can't find.
To Every Genre, Every Scene
To the industrial artists:
Your ancestors made music about fascism, about authoritarianism, about the grinding machinery of oppression. Throbbing Gristle, Skinny Puppy, Ministry—they didn't make comfortable music. They made necessary music. Follow that path.
To the punk and post-punk bands:
This is literally what your genre was born for. Every reason punk exploded in the 70s and 80s is happening again, louder. Channel your fury. Don't soften it. Don't make it palatable.
To the goth and darkwave artists: You've always understood that darkness isn't something to fear it's a lens for seeing truth. Turn that lens on what's happening now. Make it beautiful. Make it devastating. Make it honest.
To the metal bands: You write about war, death, and destruction. Well, here we are. Make your music mean something beyond fantasy. Point it at real demons.
To the experimental and noise artists: Your refusal of easy listening, your rejection of commercial palatability that's political. Make the sounds that match this moment. Make music that refuses to let people be comfortable.
To the hip-hop artists, the electronic producers, the bedroom musicians with laptops and anger: You have tools that previous generations of resistance artists could only dream of. You can record, produce, and distribute your message globally from your bedroom. Use that power.
What If You're Scared?
Of course you're scared. Making political art in an increasingly authoritarian climate is terrifying. There might be consequences. There might be backlash. Your music might be suppressed, banned, shadow-banned, or worse.
Make it anyway.
Because here's the truth: staying silent won't protect you. Fascism doesn't reward artists who keep their heads down. It eventually comes for all art that doesn't serve it. The only question is whether you spoke while you could, or whether you stayed quiet and regretted it later.
And more practically: you're already dangerous to them just by existing. If you're q***r, if you're a person of color, if you're disabled, if you're neurodivergent, if you make art that celebrates difference and darkness you're already a target. Your silence won't save you. Your voice might save someone else.
The Practical Reality
I'm not going to pretend this is easy. Political art often doesn't pay well. It can limit your audience. It can get you banned from platforms, venues, festivals. It can cost you opportunities.
But what's the alternative? Making safe music while the world burns? Creating escapism while people suffer? There's a place for joy and beauty and distraction we all need those things to survive. But if you have something to say about what's happening, say it now.
The artists who will be remembered from this period won't be the ones who played it safe. They'll be the ones who risked something to speak truth.
You Don't Have to Be Perfect
You don't need a complete political ideology. You don't need all the answers. You don't need to be an activist scholar. You just need to be honest about what you see and how it makes you feel.
Write about your fear. Write about your anger. Write about your grief. Write about your refusal to submit. Write about finding strength in community. Write about resisting despair. Write about fighting back in whatever way you can.
Your song doesn't have to solve fascism. It just has to remind people they're not alone in fighting it.
To the Elders
If you've been in the scene for decades, if you remember other waves of political crisis, if you have experience and perspective: share it. Make the music you wish you'd heard when you were younger and scared. Be the voice of defiant survival.
Your younger peers are terrified. They need to know that resistance is possible, that people have fought this before and will fight it again, that there's strength in continuing to create even when it feels hopeless.
To the Newcomers
If you're just finding your voice, just learning your instruments, just starting to make music: don't wait. You don't need to be technically perfect. Some of the most important political music in history was made by people who barely knew how to play.
Your fresh perspective, your unfiltered rage, your refusal to accept this as normal—that's valuable. That's necessary. Don't wait until you're "ready." You're ready now.
What We're Building
Every song of resistance becomes part of a larger archive. Future generations will look back at this period and ask: "Where were the artists? What were they saying? How did they fight?"
You're creating that historical record right now. You're making the music that will help people survive this moment and remember it later. You're building a community of resistance through sound.
And practically, immediately: you're giving people tools to keep going. Every time someone listens to your song and feels less alone, less crazy, less powerless—that's a victory. Every time your music helps someone find the strength to resist for one more day that matters.
The Promise of Dark Music
We who live in darkness have always known truths that others deny. We know that not all monsters are fictional. We know that sometimes the scariest things are real. We know that the world can be cruel and unjust and terrifying.
But we also know how to survive in that darkness. We know how to find beauty in shadows. We know how to build community in the margins. We know how to keep dancing even when the music turns sinister.
This is our home territory. We know how to navigate darkness. Now we need to help others find their way.
The Action Step
Stop reading this and make something. Right now. Today. This week.
One song. One track. One noise piece. One spoken word poem over dark ambient. One scream into a microphone. One honest expression of how you feel about what's happening.
It doesn't have to be your masterpiece. It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be true.
And then share it. Put it on Bandcamp. Upload it to SoundCloud. Play it at your next show. Send it to your friends. Post it in Discord servers. Make it available to anyone who needs it.
Someone out there needs to hear exactly what you have to say, exactly how you say it.
The Final Truth
Fascism thrives in silence. It grows in the spaces where people are too scared to speak. It feeds on isolation and despair.
Your music breaks that silence. Your art builds community. Your voice reminds people that resistance is possible.
You might feel small. You might feel insignificant. You might wonder if anything you create could possibly matter against forces this large and terrible.
But here's what I know after decades in dark music scenes: Every light that refuses to go out matters. Every voice that keeps singing matters. Every artist who refuses to submit matters.
You are not alone in this fight. You're part of a lineage of artists who've always spoken truth in darkness. You're part of a global community of people making beauty and meaning in the shadows.
We need your voice. We need your anger. We need your hope. We need your refusal to be silent.
This is when we need you most. This is when you make the music that matters.
So make it. Share it. Keep making it. Don't stop.
The witching hour is upon us, and we need every voice in the darkness.