Resistance In The Dark

This is Resistance In the Dark by The Five Techniques....

The Five Techniques is a David Holmes project which sees music and art as an act of resistance. Holmes played at a gig for Gaza, put together by Paul Weller. Holmes and Weller decided to make a song, available as a digital and 7" single, with vocals by Roisin el Charif, singing in Arabic, 'If my voice will falter/Yours should remain'. Douglas Hart's video is a powerful and discomforting watch. The bass drives the song on, there is a chaos among the noise, Weller's voice echoes Roisin's but in English, an acid rock guitar solo cuts through, the voices return, 'In no light/This resistance grows strong', the music swirls and urges before fading out leaving just Roisin and the voices of some Palestinians. It's strong stuff. You can get it at Bandcamp. All profits will go to Medical Aid for Palestine. 

David Holmes grew up in Belfast during The Troubles. The name of the project, The Five Techniques, refers to interrogation practices used by the British in Northern Ireland: prolonged wall standing to induce stress; hooding detainees; subjection to long periods of intense noise; sleep deprivation; and food and drink deprivation. In 1978 the European Court of Human Rights ruled that the UK government was in breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights and a 2021 Supreme Court judgement ruled that if they were used today they would be classified as torture. There are some mainstream politicians in UK politics currently who want to take the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights. Make of that what you will. 

Resistance In The Dark is a song that it is easy to imagine Sinead O'Connor singing on, if she'd lived. Sinead was recording a solo album with David after the pair met at a concert for Shane MacGowan's 60th birthday. They'd never met previously and Sinead knew nothing about David but he introduced himself and proposed making an album together, him producing and her singing, about healing- and she agreed. The album was to some extent contemporaneous with David's solo record Blind On A Galloping Horse so it's fair to assume similarities would exist between the two sonically and musically. The only released fruit of their work together is a one- off single with David's band Unloved, a cover of Mahalia Jackson's Trouble Of The World. Sinead putting the vocal down in one take, at 5 am at his house in Belfast. Given what happened to Sinead subsequently- the death of her son Shane in 2022 aged 17 and the circumstances of it, Sinead's anger and grief, and her own death in July 2023- the song sounds like a premonition, 'Soon I will be done/ With all the trouble of the world'. 

Between 2018 and 2023 Holmes and Sinead recorded eight more songs at David's house and in 2021 Sinead announced that the album would be called No Veteran Dies Alone. The album was a major work for both of them, Sinead moving into David's house for periods. David has said that he wants to see the album released, describing it as 'extraordinary, a very special album... up there with her very best work'. 

David wanted the album to be specifically about healing and it seems Sinead delivered- songs about being reunited with her mother, about God and Mary Magdalene, about her children, about dreams of being in heaven and the value of a soul, about pain, loss and grief, injustice and suffering, addiction and mental health, redemption, survival and about no veteran dying alone. It could be seen as Sinead's final statement, her last will and testament, her reckoning with the world. Unfortunately it has become mired in wranglings and music business murkiness. Its release is outside David Holmes' control and in the hands of Sinead's estate and record company. Maybe it'll come out, maybe it won't. 

In 2023 David's Necessary Genius single listed the misfits and dreamers, outsiders and radicals that have inspired him ending with the line 'I believe in Sinead O'Connor/ I believe in refugees'. Which takes us back to The Five Techniques and Resistance In The Dark.