How music can be weaponized
A noise booms from a downtown district of Kyiv. It’s not the screech of a piercing siren or a building collapsing into rubble but the pumping beat of electronica. Throughout the deafening clamor of the Russia-Ukraine war, Gasoline Radio has kept broadcasting, mixing contemporary electronic music with traditional folk to fortify Ukrainian national identity. Whether pumped out by electronica DJs, violinists playing for families in shelters or singers performing in the shelled-out carcasses of cities, all is far from quiet on the cultural front of Ukraine. Wherever there is oppression, there is resistance, and music has long been a weapon for these war-weary civilians.
