This podcast brings together different people’s unique perspectives to collectively map the reality behind mainstream narratives and try to make sense of the cognitive dissonance that comes from seeing through them.

Brought to you by Leeds music collective Fold and hosted by Seth Mowshowitz, today’s episode features the first other member of Fold that we’ve had on the show: our current drummer Jimmy — aka James Child.

We have been extremely lucky with the quality of musicians that have gravitated towards us over the years and Jimmy is no exception. He’s easily one of the finest musicians that we’ve ever worked with: an incredible drummer and an accomplished bass and guitar player. On top of all that, Jimmy’s also a professional sound engineer. He does live sound part time and plays in four different bands, including his dad’s.

As a person, Jimmy is incredibly humble, kind, caring, a good laugh and a solid friend. He has a diagnosis of Tourette’s Syndrome and we talk at length about living with his particular manifestation of Tourette’s and the impacts that’s had on him.

Another thing Jimmy has in common with all members of Fold is being countercultural by nature. Although he considers himself relatively new to thinking in socio-political terms, Jimmy is someone who has completely opened his mind in order to learn more. So his perspective is to me quite an important one for many reasons, not least of which is that transition to open-mindedness is exactly what we hope many more people will decide to make.

SHOW NOTES

Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/foldfm

Support us on Bandcamp: https://fold.bandcamp.com/subscribe

Red Eye (Jimmy’s Dad’s band): https://www.metal-archives.com/bands/Red_Eye/3540488493

Logging Off: The Human Cost of Our Digital World by Adele Zeynep Walton: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/215366529-logging-off

The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want by Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna: https://thecon.ai/

This podcast brings together singular minds to map the reality behind mainstream narratives and make sense of the cognitive dissonance that comes from seeing through them.

“In and through community lies the salvation of the world.”

These beautiful words are from M. Scott Peck’s 1987 book, The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace in which he argued that genuine community heals our isolation and division. We first came across this quote in a bell hooks lecture called Why Choose Love? that we ended up sampling on our record Choose Love (links to both below).

The quote became somewhat of a core message for our work as a whole. It eloquently represents our core beliefs, presents arguably the most important solution to the root of humanity’s biggest problems and does all of that in 10 words.

Today’s episode features only the second conversation we’ve had so far and already the emerging theme from both conversations is perfectly embodied in that quote. I’m speaking to another old friend: Gabi Rowson. Rather than a long editorialised introduction, we’ll let the conversation do the work.

If our podcast resonates with you, please consider supporting us via our Patreon page or our Bandcamp page (see links below). Your support will not only help keep this podcast going, it will also help fund our music production workshops for young people facing barriers, our own music projects and even a quarterly print zine (if we reach enough memberships).

SHOW NOTES

Support us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/foldfm

Support us on Bandcamp: https://fold.bandcamp.com/subscribe

The Different Drum: Community-Making and Peace by M Scott Peck: https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/4443.The_Different_Drum

bell hooks: Why Choose Love: https://archive.org/details/pra_powerofafricanamericanwomen_6

Fold — Choose Love: https://fold.bandcamp.com/track/choose-love-2

Sir Ken Robinson Ted Talk: Do Schools Kill Creativity?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iG9CE55wbtY

Carl Rogers 1967 UCLA Lecture On Viewing the Facilitation of Learning As the Aim of Education: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzqZffjl4D8

Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBdfcR-8hEY

Horrified (board game): https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/282524/horrified

Middle Earth Collectible Card Game (MECCG): https://meccg.com/

Two of the key aims of this podcast — and all of our work as Fold — are amplifying perspectives that challenge entrenched power structures and giving a voice to those who rarely get to have one, but greatly deserve it. We’re more interested in people who have struggled to succeed within this system than those who probably already have a platform. We greatly admire people who are unashamedly true to themselves, even when that comes at a disadvantage.

In this episode we are excited to introduce our first ever guest on the podcast, a person to whom all of the above definitely applies: Andrew Karas, known to us affectionately as Drew.

Coming from a humble background and largely self-educated, Drew is a gifted thinker, artist activist, writer and musician. His exceptional work over many decades, including his role in the activist art project AK Rockefeller, has always been driven by a deep sense of our shared humanity. Drew’s humble, quiet and thoughtful manner is laced with an infectious, sometimes dark sense of humour that always lights up our conversations. We hope you enjoy this one.

If our podcast resonates with you, please consider supporting us via our Patreon page or our Bandcamp page (see links below). Your support will not only help keep this podcast going, it will also help fund our music production workshops for young people facing barriers, our own music projects and even a quarterly print zine (if we reach enough memberships).

Show Notes

Find us on Patreon: https://patreon.com/foldfm

Find us on Bandcamp: https://fold.bandcamp.com/subscribe

Read Dancing Turtle’s article on the activist art project AK Rockefeller: https://www.dancingturtle.com/latest-news/ak-rockefeller-art-identity-and-the-struggle-for-west-papua/

Visit the official AK Rockefeller website: https://akrockefeller.com/

Unpicking Dissonance is hosted by Fold founder Seth Mowshowitz featuring original music by Fold (the short piece Nobody Fights from their album Aphelion: a tribute to Lorraine Hansberry).