Q: It’s obvious from the second I listened to Mirrored Fatality that this project is a strong force. For readers & listeners who are new to Mirrored Fatality can y’all briefly explain the project in terms of what you set out to do as a band and how you hope to be received.
mirrored fatality is a nonbinary Kapampangan-Pilipinx and Pakistani-Muslim performance art duo Mango and Samar, sharing their rituals, altars, and medicine through DIT (Do It Together) experimental and healing noise punk. mirrored fatality creates their self-proclaimed “cocoon webs” combining performance art, music, spoken word, film, photography, painting, drawing, upcycled garments, anti-imperialist education, healing justice practice spaces; mobilizing and bridging a transnational warrior community who responds urgently to transnational calls-to-action between Turtle Island, Kashmir, and Mindanao.
mirrored fatality’s performance activism allows them a safe space to release their bubbling, fermenting primal rage rooted in the settler colonialism, transphobia, racism, xenophobia, and intergenerational ancestral trauma they experience daily as nonbinary people of color. mirrored fatality’s intentions for their art is for Queer Trans Black Indigenous People of Color to embody their rage, disrupt the silence and isolation from existing in a white supremacist capitalistic apocalyptic world, and harness collective care, catharsis, and holistic healing. Join them in imagining the future we’ve been fighting for and experience mirrored fatality’s reflections to witness our highest, truest selves.
Q: What if anything has changed for you all as a band since the start of the pandemic?
Mirrored Fatality started out as an experimental punk band, today it feels like Mirrored Fatality is an expansive portal, producing “cocoon webs” holding our loved ones: artists, activists, healers, and etc together with the objects they’ve placed on their altars, the exhales and sighs we’ve shared during meditations, the protests we’ve yelled at, and disruptions we will continue to create. We know our “cocoon webs” exist without borders, cages, capitalism, fascism, etc, and through the creation shared, we are creating the world we want to see. Through learning to harness anger as marginalized bodies, we have been able to tap into other forms of healing and mobilization. What began as a punk band, has now expanded to a collective ceremony and ritual that stems across borders, communities, and the digital landscape.
When we create “cocoon webs” we realize and understand it is not about the physical space they are contained in. What will always remain, is the spirit of community, the bubbling love and trust in our veins, and the surrender to the abundance of the multiverse. This pandemic and uprisings happening globally is a reminder that nothing is guaranteed in our world especially given all of the violence and pain that dictates our everyday life. We have had to seriously consider that the way our work has functioned in the past might not be a reality for a long time – i.e) touring and traveling. The Earth is reminding us that this life of extraction and greed can no longer sustain itself. As we have been blessed with the teachings of our fellow creators, predecessors and ancestors, our only hope is to add to the many ripples that flow in the waters that sustain all our lives and our Earth.
Q: I am by no means a writer, and already feel awkward conducting an interview; but something I love when I read interviews is learning about new music & art. I want to use this area for you’all to drop as many names as you want in terms of other projects you are involved with, excited about, or organizations y’all think people should support.
READINGS:
M Archive by Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Abolish Time Zine Series by Estelle Ellison
Care Work by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
The Uses of Anger by Audre Lorde
all about love by bell hooks
Dirty River by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
Next World Tarot Deck by Cristy C. Road
Punks, Bulldaggers, and Welfare Queens: The Radical Potential of Queer Politics by Cathy Cohen
Shifting Futures: Digital Trans of Color Praxis by Micha Cárdenas
Cruising Utopia by Jose Munoz
Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines by Vina A. Lanzona
Living a Feminist Life by Sara Ahmed
Queering the Global Filipina Body: Gendered and Sexual Nationalisms in the Filipina/o Diaspora by Gina Velasco
Pilipinx becoming, punk rock pedagogy, and the new materialism by Noah Romero
Totally Radical Muslims Zine Series
revolution is in my blood by aswang sightings
Wars of Extinction by Arnold P. Alamon
Listening to Images by Tina Campt
Humanimal: A Project for Future Children 1st Edition by Bhanu Kapil
School for the Ecoscene by Sarita Daughtrey
Women who run with wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes
ORGS TO UPLIFT:
Stand with Kashmir
Liyang Network
Dignity and Power Now
Reclaiming Our Homes
Int’l Indigenous Youth Council
Sogorea Te’ Land Trust
El Sereno Community Land Trust
KDAW(kumeyaay land defense against the wall)
Redwood Forest Defense
FARM2POWER
Youth Justice Coalition LA
LA Tenants Union
No Olympics LA
STOPLAPDSPYING
LACAN
Kapatid
Critical Resistance
National Students for Justice in Palestine
Equality Labs
Union of Musicians and Allied Workers
Al Otro Lado
SummaEverythang
Enclave Caracol
ARTISTS:
Tanya Tagaq
Climbing Poetree
MIA
Kohinoorgasm
Voices of Bacerot
F.U.P.U
THEUHURUVERSE
The Muslims Band
Smiling Beth
Frank IE Consent
BEVERLY GLEN COPELAND
Ana Roxanne
Lady Midnight
Dorian Wood
DRAMA FROM SF
The Groans
HALEY HEYENDRICKX
Garbitchx
WSABI Fox
White Boy Scream
Front.hole.trauma
SenSei(tion)
Y.G.S.L.R.H. S.T.F.U.T. (YOU GUYS SUCK LIKE REAL HARD. SHUT THE FUCK UP. THANKS)
rino kodama
Leon bridges
Sneaks
Diatom Deli
SPELLLING
szela
CocoRosie
Kelsey lu
Moor mother
Eartheater
Senyawa
Duendita
Fka twigs
Anna luisa
Ah-mer-ah-su
Downtown boys
Special interest
Abi ooze
Material support
Namatay sa ingay
Orion sun
Moses sumney
Dj haram
Be steadwell
Sevdaliza
Mereba
Freddie mercury
Yves tumor
Xina xurner
Blood Orange
DoNormaal
serpentwithfeet
Wizard Apprentice
Guayaba
Ana mendieta
Q: What can we expect from Mirrored Fatality in the future?
mirrored fatality weaponizes COCOON WEBS as a sonic metamorphosis container to a world numbing us with toxic forces. COCOON WEBS is a ferocious affirmation of chaos to harness our ancestral power, primal spirit, collective fury, and interconnectedness to our multiverse. BLOOM, UTOPIA, INVALIDATION, and EARTHBODY(S) are restorative anthems to sustain us through the revolution.
Currently, we are working on a music video for INVALIDATION we are releasing in collaboration with Abolition Is (https://abolition-is.com/mirrored-fatality-feature-page-2021) on May 8. Our community can expect our website launch with mirrored fatality t-shirts, tanks, CDs, cassette tapes, and our handmade warrior ware for sale. Afterwards, we will release music videos for UTOPIA and EARTHBODY(S) and continue to create new content while in residence at The Earthlodge Center for Transformation (https://www.earthlodgecenter.org/) in Long Beach, California on Tongva Land. We are always on the search for land projects providing artist residencies and we will travel to those as the opportunities arise to expand our craft. We hope to be on the East Coast, drive across the country, and tour in Asia. We pray we are able to go on a worldwide tour if the pandemic ends, but until then we will work on expanding our sonic soundscape for our debut album.
