Tony Wakeford and Reeve Malka Interview

Last summer I had the pleasure of spending a weekend with a lot of friends and great artists, among them were one of my favourite musicians, Tony Wakeford along with his lovely wife Renee Rosen. Tony is behind the alternative folk (read neofolk, dark folk or whatever you prefer) project Sol Invictus, and is involved with several other similar projects.

Both Tony and Renee are lovely people, and it was great fun meeting them, and we still keep in touch from time to time. They are wonderful musicians, and songs by Sol Invictus are played at least once, every day, at my place. But the music often becomes overshadowed by the past, which some people seem unable to let go off. And no matter how many times Tony distances himself from past affiliations, meaning the British National Front and that sort of rather tasteless thugs, people still keep trying to use this against him.

It's sad really. It just proves how certain elements of the so-called "left", has actually just left their senses and abilities to reason far behind in their hunt for ideological purity. It's what happens when your ironclad dogmas get the best of you. You become easily confused by facts and blind to the truth. Okay, I'll admit it, it's more annoying than it's sad - though I still feel for the parents who brought these sort of lunatics in to the world and probably tried to raise them as best they could.

Well, to the point... I actually have one this time. Tony Wakeford recently gave an interview to Peter Webb along with his collaborator and producer, Reeve Malka from Israel. In this interview he clears up his past once more. The interview deals with past, present and future projects, and how he now feels about his association with the NF. At one point he states, regarding right wing politics;

"I don’t have any interest in it whatsoever. I find it quite alien. For me the past really is another country."

You don't have to be any clearer than that in my eyes. The interview is pretty long, but also very enlightening and interesting, and I heartily recommend reading it. It's been published on the web by the good folks at Evening of Light, which I'm told is a spiffy webzine, but so far I haven't had the time to look around much.

I also recommend checking out Tony's music, which you can buy through his own label, Tursa, or even as digital downloads through Woven Wheat Whispers and eMusic. His label also has some decent music of him and his associates on its myspace page. I also advice you to check out Sol Invictus on Myspace. There's also a few clips out there on youtube and elsewhere, like this rather shoddy video of a performance of one of my favourite Sol Invictus songs, Media;

I hope the recent interview quiets some of the ungrounded allegations and suspicions against Tony Wakeford and his collaborators... if not, we'll keep ignoring them. Drown them out with great music.