a note from the editor 07

A note from the editor

“Maybe I’m from everywhere and nowhere
No man’s land, between the trenches
Nothing grows there
But it’s fertilised by the brown bodies
Fought for you in the war
So when I spit a poppy grows there”
– Riz Ahmed

This is one of the questions and passages that lingers on as I revisit Riz Ahmed’s debut  album. I write debut because it is his first body of work stripped of his rap moniker Riz MC. A taking off of his mask, his persona, and leaving himself bare and open. It is something that feels even more relevant today than it did before.

For imprint, it prompts questions of “where are we going?” and “how are we getting there?”. Who are we taking along and, by that definition, who and what are we leaving behind? As we prepare for Season 2022-23, we also begin the second half of our second year of the magazine. We’re already looking to the second print edition and the third year. All the while, cognisant of where we began. Somedays that feels like yesterday; other days it feels like a lifetime and many performances, concerts, conversations ago.

Our focus has remained clear and in fact we have worked regularly to clarify it further. Our direction, perhaps unaffected by the reopening and reemergence of the world, but alas, I can’t say the same for what would be termed our drive. The quiet and contemplative time when we started the magazine feels a distant memory and the frenetic and electric nature of live shows has admittedly taken over. That was always going to happen. It was always going to affect the way we operated and the way our contributors worked and we as editors were able to function.

I use the words ‘editors’ and ‘edit’ with a bit of hesitation. Today, its weight feels a little bit darker and more ominous. To edit the past; to edit out voices that built what we see around us; to edit the past so we can create a new future; an edited dimension. So eerily the same and yet entirely different.

How does a small publication like ours working towards opposing ends survive past this national edit?
Or perhaps exactly for that reason?
Quietly; quixotically.

Presenting
Volume after
Volume after
Volume after
Volume after
Volume after
Volume after

Volume 7.