Being the subject/object of unwanted gazes, overt attention and other creepy male incursions, is so ubiquitous in most women’s lives that few even seem to address its rupturing dominance. Even when we consider ourselves to be outspoken feminists, writing about this pervasive reality isn’t simple. And perhaps it’s even more complex when the obsessive is an artist, or wealthy, someone we should supposedly feel honoured to have snagged the eye of so that, even if we don’t yield to their advances, we should at least shut up regarding our own resistance (despite the powerful examples of the #metoo movement).

Close your eyes and open your ears, friends, ‘cause cultural icons, Anne Waldman (The Iovis Trilogy: Colors in the Mechanism of Concealment) and Andrew Whiteman (Broken Social Scene) have collaborated to create Your Devotee in Rags—a metamorphic sonic poetry LP being released with Siren Recordings.

Your Devotee in Rags is a missive to this age of patriarchal power, its songs and poems are designed to specifically confront that power and hold it to account. Taking such activist inspiration from musicians like Lido Pimienta and Tanya Tagaaq, musically YDIR blends acoustic and electronic genres, waltzes, laments, and Pauls Boutique-era Beastie Boys mash-ups all with the intent of creating a new artistic headspace: sonic poetry. The cultural direction is forward, the earbuds open up the stereo field, listening to YDIR is, in a word, empowering.