The Anglo-German electronic duo Kaleida write, record and produce all their music themselves. Tear The Roots is an unsettling, cerebral work, including a stripped-back version of anti-war protest song 99Luftballons. Vocalist Christina Wood writes for Run Riot on the intersection of her experiences as a woman in the music industry and our dysfunctional relationship with the natural world.

We’ve entered the Anthropocene - the era of the human. By burning carbon and razing vast areas of forest, we’ve made our irreversible mark on the planet. We’re already dealing with the consequences: rising sea levels, prolonged droughts, crop failures, more extreme weather events, increased flooding, retreating glaciers, acidifying oceans, climate refugees, compromised biodiversity. We’re living way beyond on planetary means, out of sync with nature, and by 2050 our population will grow by half again.

Apart from music, I work as a consultant on the sustainable sourcing of commodities that drive deforestation, like timber, palm oil or soy. I often feel defeated in this work – how will we ever solve such systemic problems? The fundamental way we think about the environment is wrong. We see nature as something to exploit. We don’t account for the value of natural resources and ecosystem services in our economic framework. And how can we overcome our own nature – can we move beyond the tribal unit, and cooperate on a global scale on an issue as complex as living within our planetary means? Can we think long-term, when we are essentially short-term beings? Most people have heard that the Arctic Ocean will essentially be ice-free in summer by mid-century, or that micro-plastics can be found in our bodies. But we fail to take meaningful action in response, and technology will not save us from a problem this epic.

This dysfunctional relationship with the environment is what I was thinking about when writing the track House of Pulp, from Kaleida’s debut album Tear The Roots. The track is about our inability to face up to what’s happening to the environment, and the coming losses and suffering we’ll experience as a result of climate change and population growth. We build houses of pulp from cheap unsustainable materials, in a throw-a-way culture addicted to plastic, and we don’t take care of the ecosystems that sustain us. Some would even argue that climate change is an act of violence against nature - ‘extreme, horrific, long-term, widespread violence’ as Rebecca Solnit calls it.

Made by two women, our album Tear The Roots comes from a very female perspective, which for me is also linked to my work on the environment. To give some background - it was important to us to make the album on our own, in the very male world of electronic music, and retain control over our own voice. We didn’t want to be silenced by an industry that expected us to co-opt our ideas to a male producer who would shape our work into a product appealing to men, as has so often happened to other female artists.

There are parallels between today’s dominant paradigm of consumption/unfettered growth/domination of the environment and the power dynamics of our history, where women and people of different ethnic groups or sexualities have been treated as lesser entities than white males, as many eco-feminists have pointed out. The environment, like women, has long been essentially silenced – we discount it and its importance. Unfortunately, unlike women, it can’t speak for itself. And it’s frustrating to witness the distraction of male geopolitical posturing (i.e. Trump v. Jong-un) reach new levels, while issues like climate change take a back seat.

There has been a sea-change for women’s rights recently. Our voice is growing louder, and our unequal status is becoming less and less socially acceptable (i.e. this week’s Harvey Weinstein news). Men are speaking out more frequently and are less willing to tacitly condone abusive behavior; the men I saw on the Women’s March in London in January were testament to that. It would be welcome for more men to fight with us against more subtle forms of sexism by supporting women to achieve their potential. I am thinking of the societal expectations of women and how women internalize these, often aiming lower than men, and suffering from lower confidence. Cicely and I had very few role models when we set out to make this album, and I personally can say that I struggled a lot with sustaining confidence in my ability.

My hope is that as the conversation shifts, we can address what connects these issues – the repression of specific groups and the domination of the environment. Not only do we need a common basis of egalitarianism, humanism, compassion, and nonviolence in our relationship with each other, but with nature. It has been important to me to make this album and add this dual message to the many voices of resistance now calling for change.

‘Kaleida are the stewards of our feminist future. Politically active and environmentally aware, Tear The Roots is an attempt to map these concerns out of the abstract and into musical form.’ – GOD IS IN THE TV. 

Kaleida's album Tear The Roots is available now.

Live dates:

18th October at Birthdays 

17th November at Oval Space supporting Vitalic