As viewers of Orange Is The New Black would know, being a music a fan in prison isn’t always easy. In the second series of the Netflix tele-drama, an inmate requests a smuggled iPod full of Erasure only to be dismayed when she finds out that “it’s full of Fleet Foxes and shit.”
Perhaps Flaca and the other fictional inmates of Litchfield Penitentiary would be far happier with psych garage group, Thee Oh Sees? Well, the band now have a real-world plan to get more music into prisons, albeit in a far more legal manner.
Castle Face Records, the label run by Thee Oh Sees’ John Dwyer (with Brian Lee Hughes and Matt Lee Jones), have decided to give their catalogue away for free to prison inmates across the United States. Castle Face, which has released records from indie and garage rock acts such as Meredith-bound Ty Segall, Coachwhips, White Fence, and Fresh & Onlys will mail out CDs to any incarcerated individuals wanting them.
As Death And Taxes reports, this is no joke, the Castle Face For The Incarcerated initiative writes that inmates need only “contact us at [email protected] with the subject line CASTLE FACE FOR THE INCARCERATED, and include the inmates name, the facility they are in, the inmates number and any mailing restrictions.” They’ll then post out the CDs free of charge.
It’s more than just a kind gesture too, with Thee Oh Sees’ label saying it was inspired by Ascetic House Collective, who release cassettes for a large variety for artists, a program galvanised through disenchantment with America’s penal system in a statement that takes aim at the country’s overburdened imprisonment levels.
Just as Orange Is The New Black has brought awareness to the issues of women’s prisons it’s clear that Castle Face Records and Ascetic House Collective look to do the same to the sounds of a sweet soundtrack.
Read the full statement from Ascetic House Collective below:
“The United States leads the world in the rate of incarcerating its own citizens. We imprison more of our own people than any other country on earth, including China, which has 4 times our population. Over two million people are currently locked up in the immense network of U.S. prisons and jails. Mass incarceration is the corrupt systems best solution to the vast array of social problems that burden the poor, the disenfranchised, and the marginalized among us. It is also the corrupt systems best method of perpetuating itself, with the main focus of state policy being social control.
As a result most of us have a relative, a loved one, a friend or a friend of a friend that is or has been incarcerated. These are our brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters. More than half of those relegated to cages are there for nonviolent “crimes”: vice crimes, thought crimes, political crimes and the like. It is extremely important we do not forget these brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, sons and daughters.”
