COP ON FIRE - Dub punk from Belgium

CON ON FIRE are a quartet raised on dub, ska, punk and protest-songs alike, with a heart for todays activistmovement, reclaiming the streets, opening autonomous social centres, dedicated to antifascism, sustainable living,... Oh, and they don’t like cops. Raging sub-bass-dub and riotous ska is what you get.

DIY has been more than a label to the band as they've played just about anywhere, except the mayor's ball or fishy right-wing related pubs. This has meant putting up their own stage to play an activist camp, squatting their own venues, fixing the band’s van on the road (not seldom with shoelace and gum), fishing the software to edit the samples out of a supermarket's wastebin,... But check out the tunes and make up your own mind.

BIO COP ON FIRE
Born out of Leuven-Belgium’s activist squatting scene in 2004, Cop On Fire have been putting up festive foun-dations of pumping drums and sub-bass dub supporting their local scene. Local in this case is as global as a good part of Europe as C.O.F. toured between Scotland and Slovakia, though never playing Kortessem.

Consisting of 4 people who have a heart for dub, ska, punk and protest-songs alike, C.O.F. uses these influences to recreate feelings from daily life: sticking it to The Man, taking a stand for Mother Earth, opening the bin for bigoted morality and xenophobia of all kinds…

Oh, and we don’t like cops. Reclaim The Streets, opening autonomous social centres, Antifascist Action, sustainable living, … action backed up by the flow of drum and bass, a guitar crossing musical boundaries all thrown in a mix of effects and echoes from the underbelly of society – the samples.

DIY has been more than a label to the band as we've played just about anywhere, except the mayor's ball or fishy right-wing related pubs. This has meant putting up our own stage to play an activist camp, squatting our own venues, fixing our own van on the road (not seldom with shoelace and gum), fishing the software to edit our samples out of a supermarket's wastebin,...

DIY does not trap us within borders of a certain scene, so we gladly play different places as long as our perfor-mance doesn't get any capital flowing towards any of the assholes or companies trying to make a miserable life for the less privileged. We don't care about music contests and shit alike, we don't care to mention what bands we've played with, as all that is superficial and irrelevant to what this band is about - even though we liked most bands we've played with a lot.

Naming names though, we've been influenced by bands as diverse as Skatalites, Killing joke, Mad professor, Conflict, The Clash, Amebix, Radical dance faction, Immortal technique, … COF released a first cd-ep “Welcome To The Free Zone” march 2008, have changed drummers for the third and so they believe last time and have released a split album in sep 2010 with australian activist hiphopband combat wombat.


http://www.myspace.com/coponfireearth

 

Et une petite chronique de l'album par l'ami Lionel du fanzine 442ème Rue:

COP ON FIRE/COMBAT WOMBAT (Split CD, Mass Productions/Kapotte Radio/General Strike/Maloka)

Ah que voilà un split CD pour le moins inusité. D'un côté Cop On Fire, groupe de reggae-dub belge, de l'autre Combat Wombat, groupe de hip-hop australien. Je ne m'étendrai pas sur ces derniers, le rap, conscient ou pas, me fait profondément chier, j'y peux rien, c'est comme ça. Pour ce qui est de Cop On Fire en revanche, voilà un truc qui me fait nettement plus bander. Un reggae-dub qui fait la part belle aux bidouillages sonores de toutes sortes puisque, en sus du trio de base guitare-basse-batterie, le quatrième membre du groupe est tapi derrière ses machines afin d'illustrer au mieux les textes, minimalistes mais suffisamment explicites, de ses petits camarades de jeu. Ca fait penser aux aventures reggae d'Inner Terrestrials, mais avec les samples en plus, ou, plus loin de nous, au reggae militant des Babylon Fighters. Les titres balancés par Cop On Fire ne souffrent aucune ambiguité, on est bien là dans la prise de position radicale et combattante ("Banks, no thanks", "The language of Kalashnikov", "Corporate ass fuck", "Antifa dub"), et sûrement pas dans le ska festif ploum ploum tralala plume dans le cul. Chez Cop On Fire on réfléchit à son présent, surtout, et à son futur, un peu, et on trouve peu de raisons de se réjouir de la situation. Du coup, on le fait savoir sur des rythmiques lancinantes, lourdes et puissantes la plupart du temps, ou, si l'on s'autorise quelques pas de ska ("Ska 13"), c'est aussi pour éructer des mots aussi tranchants qu'une chanson punkoïde. Ces 6 titres sentent la poudre. Et pour parfaire votre information, ne zappez pas la partie CD Rom qui vous propose une petite trentaine de bouquins (oui vous avez bien lu, une trentaine), en format PDF, pour en savoir plus sur tout un tas de sujets, l'écologie, l'anti-capitalisme, l'anarchisme, le végétarisme, etc, etc... Des heures de lecture en perspective.