Whitechapel takeover: Mark Titchner's top 10 songs about liberty

From Crass to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, artist Mark Titchner selects a soundtrack to state control, corruption and the struggle for freedom
Mark Titchner website graphic
An image from Mark Titchner's website. Photograph: Mark Titchner

1) The Kill by Fugazi (from The Argument, 2001)

For many years Fugazi have provided a model for self-governance and independence from the record industry. Through their own record label, Dischord, they have controlled every aspect of their artistic output and often hosted live shows and benefit concerts in unusual venues, with no age restrictions and low ticket prices. This song, from the band's final album The Argument (they went on hiatus in 2002), is slightly unusual within the Fugazi catalogue given its pace, as well as the haunting vocals by bassist Joe Lally, but its lyrical concerns and dub-influenced bassline are Fugazi cornerstones. The lyrics describe the fate and psyche of a prisoner on death row and it's difficult not to be gripped by them. The disjunction between the song's chorus, "I'm not a citizen, I'm not a citizen" and its final line – "it's in my mouth, under my skin, sodium pentathol" – is particularly uncomfortable.

2) Yes Sir I Will by Crass (from Yes Sir I Will, 1983)

This track is the first section from Crass's penultimate album, which is actually one continuous piece. The vocals of Steve Ignorant, Joy De Vivre and Eve Libertine weave together into a cacophonous Crass manifesto on life. When I hear this song I'm always amazed by the powerful and insightful lyrics, reflecting the libertarian position of the band: "Those of us who stand out against the status quo, do so against all odds. We cling so closely together because we have little other than ourselves". These concerns were a vital aspect of the band, from their art work to their organisation of political action. Incidentally, the album title comes from a reported exchange between Prince Charles and the badly-burned Falklands War veteran Simon Weston. Prince Charles said "Get well soon" and the soldier replied "Yes, sir I will".

3) Blaise Bailey Finnegan III by Godspeed You! Black Emperor (from Slow Riot for New Zero Kanada EP, 1999)

This song is the second of a two-track EP and has the cinematic dynamic of the first track, Moya, with the addition of a six-minute field recording of a rant on a public street, attributed to someone called Blaise Bailey Finnegan III. (Music trivia fans might note that Iron Maiden had a singer called Blaze Bayley. In fact, the "poem" Mr Finnegan recites around nine minutes into the song is the lyrics to the Iron Maiden song Virus.) Mr Finnegan, who begins by saying, "I don't like the way the country's ran don't you know", is incensed at having to appear in court to pay a speeding ticket. Complemented by the looping orchestral sweeps of GY!BE, the track swings from anger to pathos as the speaker describes his paranoid vision of the USA, his willingness to defend his freedom of expression in court – and, finally, the large collection of firearms he feels necessary to protect his liberty against the state. This record was released by the Canadian label Constellation Records, who continue to pursue their independent approach to making, packaging and promoting music by avoiding distributing their releases through chain stores.

4) A Beast Caged by Dälek (from Absence, 2004)

Dälek's brand of hip-hop fuses the visceral verbal assault of Public Enemy with the sonic expanses of My Bloody Valentine. It is an affecting, powerful combination that takes aim at racial politics, religious bigotry and exploitation. The vocals of MC Dälek are buried below thick layers of sound from producer Octopus, but the wail of "Incarcerated souls sold to build empires" is still pretty clear. Absence is a particularly tough album, even within the Dälek catalogue, but A Beast Caged is its centrepiece. The song takes on the themes and connections between imprisonment of all kinds; racial and economic exploitation, imperialism, surveillance, internment and corporate/governmental collusion. It's a call to defiance in a world that often engenders silence and complicity.

5) Vastness and Sorrow by Wolves in the Throne Room (from Two Hunters, 2007)

This song represents another kind of liberty, one of spiritual transcendence. Wolves in the Throne Room are a black metal band from Olympia, Washington, whose members espouse a kind of environmental paganism and reconnection with the Earth. They are also one of the most incredible live bands that I have ever seen – they left me with the disorientating, but exhilarating, feeling that the whole set had lasted only a few seconds. This particular song is all about ascendancy and somehow, given that it begins with an intensemass of drums, guitar and screamed vocals, it manages to build from epiphany to epiphany.

6) Paranoid Chant by Minutemen (from Paranoid Time EP, 1980)

As with Fugazi, I feel that I could have chosen pretty much any song by the Minutemen, so infused was everything they did with their humanism and politics. Labelmates and contemporaries of hardcore legends Black Flag, Minutemen embody the DIY aesthetic of the genre. The Californian trio brought their brand of finessed funk to perplexed punk audiences all over the US until the tragic death of singer D Boon in a 1986 car accident. This is the last track from their 1980 debut EP Paranoid Time and, typically for a Minutemen track, it comes in at 1 minute 19 seconds. It's one of my favourites of theirs, possibly because as a child of the 80s I can relate very strongly to the lyrics "I try to work and I keep thinking of World War 3. I'm trying to talk to girls, I keep thinking of World War 3".

7) Thief by Can (from Delay 1968, recorded 1968, released 1981)

This song can be found on a compilation album that documents some of the band's early work with the vocalist Malcolm Mooney, predating what is normally seen as their classic period with vocalist Damo Suzuki. I read this song as a melancholic lament on man's fate, destined always to be profane and degraded in order to survive in the world. This idea is crystallised in the lyric "The thief was drawn to the cross, To share that other's fate. But the Jesus man said "Not now my brother not now, it's far too late". The line "Do what you must, take what you can" does a pretty good job of summing up the subtext for modern living. This probably sounds pretty bleak, but it's a great and beautiful song.

8) Hypnotised by Mark Stewart (from As The Veneer of Democracy Begins to Fade, 1985)

While I'm still thinking about the bleak side of liberty, here's a track from Mark Stewart's classic 1985 album As The Veneer of Democracy Begins to Fade. The album as a whole documents Stewart's ongoing concern with state control and oppression. Lyrically, this is made obvious on the title track. The political theme is still there, but perhaps a little less apparent, on the single Hypnotised, which fuses electro, the funk of Stewart's long-standing band The Maffia, and the dub production of Adrian Sherwood. Most of the lyrics are obscured by heavily distorted samples, with Stewart's screams of "Obey" or "Soldiers, soldiers, soldiers" occasionally penetrating. Only the spoken refrain "7% of the population, 94% of the wealth" is entirely and purposefully audible. It is possible to interpret this depiction of corruption and control as, like Crass's, entirely negative – but I think that it is, instead, an attempt to clearly acknowledge a certain state of affairs - to understand is the first defence.

9) The Anvil Will Fall by Harvey Milk (from My Love Is Higher Than Your Assessment of What My Love Could Be, 1994)

This is a band from Athens, Georgia, not the gay, assassinated politician recently portrayed by Sean Penn. Musically, this song has pretty much everything: Creston Spier's abject vocals, jazz-like descents, crushing heaviness, screams, and most bizarrely a very long sample of the patriot's favourite, I Vow to Thee, My Country. This is a dark story of fate and maternal love overcoming paternal violence. The opening line, "My mama's first love was a vile ex-Marine, but the blood and guts in her heart could have washed the blood from Pilate's hands" sets the tone for the rest of the song. It is rousing stuff, but qualified by a sense of unavoidable fate, as the mother pronounces "And today on your 13th birthday, I can see through these tears, that my son you'll be a soldier before 5 more years". There is every sense that despite the desperate pride and pomp, the cycle will begin again.

10) Farewell by Boris (from Pink, 2006)

And so, to finish. Although part of me would like to choose something like the vile, catharsis of Cut Hands Has The Solution by Whitehouse (2003), let us finish with something unmistakably joyous. Japanese trio Boris have a prodigious catalogue of releases that ranges from hi-energy garage rock to lo-frequency drone. They have collaborated over the last few years with artists such as Merzbow, Sunn o))) and Ghost's Michio Kurihara. They also seem to be continually on tour. A Japanese journalist flicking through CDs in my studio translated the Japanese title of this song as "Like an explosion but bigger". When the album was given its American release, the title became Farewell. The original title seems, to me, perfectly evocative of a song that is the audio equivalent of staring at the sun. It makes me smile and forget myself every time I hear it, and if you like this song, you might also want to check out the excellent You Were Holding an Umbrella from last year's Smile. Farewell!