“Hey comrades. Hope you are not going to like our new track, since it’s dedicated to really disgusting things,” Pussy Riot collectively say in the letter accompanying their new track and video. “Hope you will turn it off, go out, and act.”
The punk Russian activists and band have today released their latest protest production, “Bad Apples”. The video, a collaboration with Dave Sitek and produced by Matt Creed, sees Nadya Tolokonnikova in police uniform chopping, smashing, and crushing apples.
“Damn fools, drunk on power, dirty thieves, tiny cowards,you wouldn’t act like this in front of your kids – NO!” they sing over wavy, grinding synths. The song zones in, like much of their music, on police brutality, and the broken political system that breeds structural inequality, gaps in healthcare and education, sexism, and violence. In a collective statement, the punk art movement calls out songs “circling around romantic feelings and Friday parties”, calling for the dedication to important topics like climate change, gun control, unlawful detainment, abuse of power, and social inequalities.
The group point to their activist media agency, Mediazona, and the neverending news cycle on state violence and Russia’s political crimes they report on as why they produce tracks about “bad apples”.
Members of Pussy Riot spent two years in Russian prison after being convicted for hooliganism – the group performed a punk prayer in a Moscow cathedral and were detained. Ever since, they’ve made music that exposes the state’s failings. Some of their most major output includes “I Can’t Breathe”, dedicated to police brutality victim Eric Garner, “Chaika”, about Russia’s corrupt prosecutor general Yury Chaika, and Donald Trump-swiping “Make America Great Again”.
The group will be appearing at political rallies and events over the next few months – from SXSW to a day with Reclaim Chicago.
Watch the video for “Bad Apples” below.