VIDEO PREMIERE: Ravi Shavi Dissect Cool Indifference of American Life with Sharp-edged Indie Rocker “Fresh Hell”

Rafay Rashid was born in Islamabad, Pakistan, and bred in New York and Rhode Island. He makes experimental pop and no-wave songs, under the moniker Ravi Shavi, that are confessional, ecstatic, and confrontational. His writing emerged as a response to growing up a Muslim kid in the neoliberal hellspace of post-9/11 America.

Ravi Shavi became a persona and vehicle for both radical healing and anarchic humor as he crafted a niche amidst the noise and freak folk music scenes of Providence, Rhode Island in the late 00’s. Since then, he has cut his teeth touring independently for the past decade, opening for acts such as Charles Bradley, Of Montreal, Man Man, Budos Band, Los Lobos, and the Black Lips.

Rashid’s previous projects include Kitchen Weapons, Rodney Dangerous, Lookers, and Happiness (with members of Deer Tick). Wild Rock Dove, due June 12th through Almost Ready Records, is the first Ravi Shavi record as a five-piece and the first to feature Shahjehan Khan.

Today, Glide is offering an exclusive premiere of the band’s new single “Fresh Hell” along with its accompanying music video. Dealing with both an ironic and real sense of impending personal and global collapse, the song is a spunky, fast-moving work of indie rock that is delightfully unexpected. There is just enough of a jagged, post-punk edge to the guitar and vocals to impart a sense of danger that matches the lyrics about American indifference and the illusion of blissful ignorance. The band puts it this way: “The numbness of the Clinton-era morphing into something demonic and glib. About the dissonance between self-help culture, war, and the commodification of every problem. Walking down the street, it’s a brand new hell each day, and to most, it feels alright.” The video brings this idea to life and hits you with a wallop of energy that is over before you know it.

Says Rashid, “‘Fresh Hell’ is about the cultivation of cool indifference and the survival strategies of people submerged in new and daily horrors – history repeating itself while a ‘been there done that’ attitude gets applied to global atrocity and heartbreak.”

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