Unherd.Music is a Bengaluru-based label that has bands such as The Earth Below, Diarchy, Rainburn, Dirge and Maneating Orchid on its roster. "Unherd.Music is a record label that I started some months back as a natural progression of my live gig series, Unscene," founder Ramakrishnan Krishnan tells us. Now the label has taken up a new initiative with the theme 'Unite. Untie...the purse strings'. The label is cutting down prices of the CDs and merchandise on its websites and will zlso give money to various organisations to help with COVID-19 relief.
On their Facebook page the label posted:
"Unite. Untie...the purse strings.
All of us have been deeply distressed the last many days by the state of many of our people; hopeless and helpless. At Unherd.Music we're doing something simple to help. We've dropped the prices on our CDs and T-shirts on ArtBlot from Diarchy and The Earth Below by INR 200 each and we've dropped prices on Bandcamp on the new music and merch from these 2 bands and the 'Resignify' EP from Rainburn by about 25%, all of which Unherd will absorb so the artist revenues are not hit. We will give money equal to these discount amounts from each sale to organisations that are doing great work under these trying circumstances. We will run this till Apr 14th assuming stocks last. And we will continue to help in other ways as well because we know that in the coming days much will be needed. To the cynic, this may seem a gimmick. That's alright; we can't help that. As long as people are being helped, it's all good."
The organisations that they will support are Goonj, Voice of Stray Dogs and RAHI. "A lot will depend on how much we end up with and we definitely would like to spread what we can among more organisations, rather than give it all to one," Ram adds.
"I grew up in a middle-class family, like many of us. No heady luxuries but we had enough to give us a leg-up to doing well over the years. I can't help that I was born to that privilege, such as it was, but I definitely can help those that are not. I think that should be the case for all of us who are in such a position, even if the 'level' of privilege is different for each of us. That's how I have been from the time I was a kid. And this has always been a part of all that I have actively done with music," Ram sums up.
Here's a little about these organisations:
Goonj
Goonj is working towards long-term rehabilitation of daily wage earners, who are likely to be unemployed for an unforeseen period of time due to the pandemic. They prepare kits with essentials such as dry rations and personal care products and transport them to over a million people in areas with huge pockets of migrant labour. They will also utilise donations to address the impact on family income, healthcare, debt and education.
Voice of Stray Dogs
It's not just us humans who need help. VoSD has been doing stellar work with street dogs for a long time.
Rise Against Hunger - India or RAHI
RAHI has stepped in to support members of the lowest strata of our society, comprising daily wage workers, construction workers, contract laborers, street vendors who have been the worst hit by providing them with meals and other essential support."
Details: unherdmusic.bandcamp.com