New Album Resilience

We are removed from that which we put inside our bodies. These rooms that we lock ourselves into are dizzyingly sterile, white and smelling of containment. Of course we have lost the memory of mud between our toes, of the swaying trees and the singing of the birds that live in them.

These headlights root us to the spot as the spectacle unfolds around us. Our desires are buried in muffled shells. Only when we start to have conversations again with ourselves and the natural world around us, will we find reconnection and healing.

This album has been our attempt to connect, and to address feelings of alientation and powerlessness.

We are so grateful to everyone that has moved us, inspired us, loved us and taught us, as individuals and as a band. Thanks to those that have welcomed us, made us tea, and put us up in so many places. There is such a importance in free spaces that we can experiment, grow, play and resist in together.

Thanks to Paper Jam for printing this beautiful booklet.
Thanks to Klaas for recording this album with us, and playing a big part in the manifestation of this project.
Thanks to Riotska records, and all the people that put up with our chaos and our ever changing plans.

And a shout out to everyone who, whether through spoken or written word, or through acts of passion, push their ideas and critiques forward, and actualise their desires for freedom. ­

Here is the link to our new album on bandcamp: https://cistemfailure.bandcamp.com/
you can order it onlinesies on our bandcamp <3

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Single coming out!

23 of May we are releasing a single off of our upcoming album Resilience!
You will be able to find it on cistemfailure.bandcamp.com

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Long time no post

CISTEM FAILURE NOW COMING TO/IN YOUR TOWN??? So as some of you might know we are working very hard on our next album. We ran into a small complication, it is called money. very inconvenient sometimes. We where talking about maybe crowdfund, but then realised it might be more fun to just play A WHOLE BUNCH OF SHOWWSSS! So INVITE US TO YOUR TOWN! Send us a message or email us at cistemfailure@riseup.net

So yeah, we are still alive! we rested, we feel good. we are happy.
feel free to invite us wherever. if we wont come, we might in the future!

so yeah, iff you want to support us please do!

lots of things.
x

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Some regretz…

Hey everyone,

its been a while since our last update. And we would like to take the time to talk a bit about our tour and our plans for future.

We just finished our tour, which we ironically called ‘no regretz’. We went through Germany, Netherlands, England and Wales, which we had the chance to play with Petrol Girls, Days n Daze, Shitfaced Mermaids, Exilent and loads of other sick bands, and got to meet amazing people, visit great projects and catch up with lots of friends. As far as playing shows goes it was a brilliant tour, the only thing that was consistent about it was that once we actually got on the stage it was great. But all the parts in between were a bit of a shitstorm…

In a nutshell: 3 emergency room trips, a five hour delay on the megabus that resulted into some good old street sleeping action, after finding out that the megabus lost one of our backpacks and all our merch. Getting incredibly sick which led us to cancel on a show in Norwich. Em failing the hay bale challenge at Common Ground festival (jumping over hay bales with a bunch of kids) and ending up on crutches for the last 2 weeks. And Roro barely keeping it together trying to organise things due to still being epically stressed from the whole prison thing. We were thinking that maybe we should call the next one the ‘no expectationz tour’ lol.

Although all of this happened, we are still a little bit shocked by the overwhelming support and love we received at all the gigs. Its crazy that at every gig we played, people that we have never met before knew our songs. We have never played such big shows, and we are still getting used to these big crowds. Its pretty overwhelming.

This past year and a half has been filled with lots of cool adventures, and alot of travels but we feel that it is time for us to create a place that we can return to after traveling and establish a bit of a base. Because none of us actually have a home somewhere, and its starting to wear us down, not being able to have any downtime. We need some stability to be able to process all the things that have happened over the last times. As much as we love staying on peoples couches, we are really looking forward to having our own beds again.

So we have decided to make a move to Amsterdam. We will still be playing shows for the next months, but not doing any long tours for a while.

The cool thing about settling down is that we can actually work on some plans and ideas that we have on a consistent basis. Here are some of our ideas:
We are writing a lot of music for our new album, its going to sound quite different, but we are very excited for this, we are hoping to release it in the winter time/early spring.
To fund this venture we might be looking into doing some sort of crowd funding.
We want to write a zine about prisons and the experiences of us and our friends.
We would like to do a music video of one of our new songs, and release it before the album. (So if any of you know how to do that, and want to help out, please let us know!)
Also we want to have the time to work a bit on our own individual projects and lives.
We will probably do a big tour after releasing our album, but we realise that all these plans are already pretty ambitious, and if we have learned anything over the last months its that we should try to take things a bit slower and not be to hard on ourselves.

We have received so much support over the last months and we are forever grateful for all the people that put us on, gave us a place to sleep, and some food. We want to specifically thank Rogue Cat Productions for making some amazing patches for us, and saving our butts when the megabus lost our merch. Check out Rogue Cats stuff here: https://www.facebook.com/RogueCatProductions/?fref=ts

We want to thank Matt from Pumpkin Records who has been a total star in helping us out with so many shows, and dealing with all the bullshit of organizing a festival. We dont think we could pull that off so smoothly while remaining kind and helpful lol.

Random Camel Housing Co-op in Ipswich, where we arrived super sick. We kind of took over their living room as a autonomous sick zone, which they totally supported. It was very nice to just be in a place, be sick and feel like people were caring for us.

We want to thank our designated driver/drinker/drugger that made every night a surprise, and made us wonder a couple of times, are we going to make it to the next show? But we always did, the trash music in the multipla was a source of much fun. You are great, and we love you, little walnut.

Also, of course, all the people that put effort into putting us on, and being so caring. Its a good feeling to know that we are being supported and people want to spend time into having us play, especially at time when things get a bit rough.

We are very grateful!

28316485_B977509165Z.1_20160107111309_000_G0E5U8MTQ.1-0

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Upcoming tour!

Scan 10
We are planning a tour! its gonna be pretty sweet. We are bringin a distro, and cool merch.
We have some gap days, so if you want to hang out, or invite us to come pet cats, then you can!
Also, we love and appreciate you all for all the support, and checking in with us. You know who you are.

Dates:

AUGUST
14th – Queer Summer Camp, Munster, DE http://msfeminismus.blogsport.eu/sommercamp-2016/

18th – Bambara, Groningen, NL
https://www.facebook.com/events/1096715717067848/

21st – AZ, Wuppertal, DE
http://www.az-wuppertal.de/

24th – Climate Camp, Rhineland, DE

The organizing group of the Climate Camp in the Rhineland discontinues – Long live the Climate Camp

27th – Anarchist Bookfair, Norwich, UK
https://www.facebook.com/events/675051489321671

SEP

1st – The Chelsea, Bristol, UK
https://www.facebook.com/events/1640156812968203/

2-4th – Common Ground Festival, Forest of Dean, UK
http://commongroundfestival.co.uk/

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Holiday time…

So we decided to take a few days holiday and do some fun stuff, considering the last month has been stressful and difficult in both our lives, and we wanted to take a chance to chill out and do some nice stuff before getting back on the road for the next tour. Its still a bit strange to be free from prison, i am looking at it like some kind of surreal, dream-like experience where i can’t believe i actually spent a month there. I am reflecting on a lot of things, and mentally gathering together all the things that i learnt from myself and other people during this time, so i guess its nice to have these few days of chilling out to understand what is next in my mind.

We have been throwing a lot of ideas around for projects we want to get going, and one of them is to make a zine about our experiences of prison in this situation, talking about the reality of prison from the inside and about the roles of support and solidarity from the outside, with pictures and letters that i recieved, some letters or essays from other people imprisoned as well experiences of police repression in the last month, and general info about what happened in Oslo and how it reflects the actions and agendas of the state in a larger context. We would really like to make this in the next month or so, if anyone has any experience in making zines look good then we would appreciate any help.

We are also still in the process of putting together the hunt sab compilation CD, its been a busy 6 months and this has kinda slipped to the bottom of our to-dos but it WILL happen! The hunting season will be starting again in the next couple of months and its vital that there are people going out each weekend all over the UK, trying to stop beings from getting killed – to do that they need money for fuel, land-rover maintence and equipment, so if peeps are able to support them in anyway by holding fundraising events or by any other means of expropriation then that is really great. Hopefully we can get this CD out as soon as possible to contribute towards that.

Then there’s the sweet patches that Sheridanistan made for us to throw out into the world, we have sold a bunch already which is great, if people would like to get in on that then just visit our bandcamp page where you can find them. We are offering a very good capitalist deal that people would be a fool to miss out on! Obviously we need to raise some money to put out our CDs and travel to shows and stuff but of course if you are also broke then we can work something out.

The radio shows that R has been doing in Oslo are probably gonna become podcasts from them, since we aren’t in Norway anymore. They wanna try to do that as much as possible but obviously it won’t be as frequent as before. But we’ll post stuff about it on our page when it happens.

So, for the next tour….

AUGUST
14th – Queer Summer Camp, Munster, DE
18th – Bambara, Groningen, NL
21st – AZ, Wuppertal, DE
24th – Climate Camp, Rhineland, DE
27th – Anarchist Bookfair, Norwich, UK

SEP

1st – The Chelsea, Bristol, UK
2-4th – Common Ground Festival, Forest of Dean, UK

We’re very excited to be going on tour with Days and Daze, as well as playing with loads of great bands all over the place, and we’re gona be travelling with a distro again which will be fun.

I’m taking the time to write back to everyone who sent a letter and didn’t get a reply, i hope I can do this within the next couple of weeks (as I don’t have so much time on my hands compared to in prison…) so if you didn’t hear anything back from me yet, just know that your support and humour really was the most incredible thing to recieve and i hope that we can continue supporting each other through shitty prison sentences and other repression that we face. The amount of people that wrote ‘tear apart the walls’ inside their letters was really a strong reminder of the impact that we all have on each other in so many ways and if we can keep using our strength and care for each other as a tool against this shit then i think we have a better chance at surviving <3

ALSO here's a pic from our friends at Grangegorman (squat city) in dublin, they are gonna be evicted soon and need all the help with resistance that they can get. Sending love and solidarity across the seas!1907744_750031961761528_2352441834898657863_n

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Back in the game!

Hey everyone,
I am out of prison and it feels so good!
I appealed the verdict of 45 days, not expecting anything to be accepted, but it was!
So now i have done 30 days, and have a pending 15 days that will be decided by the appeal court if i should have to do the rest. That it not until october lets see if i feel like going back 😉

So until the next pie i am free!

It was a bit surreal at first to be out but i am here with my good buddies, and coming back to them has been fantastic. I feel very grateful to everyone who send letters/zines/pictures being on the radio, making banners and things and i hope you can all feel my love, where ever you are.

I am going to write some more, very soon as me and R are putting together a zine about prison. So keep your eyes out for more info and thoughts about this weird experience.
There are still a bunch of people all over in prison. So lets keep supporting them and giving them strength to get through the shit times.
If you feel like writing letters was a fun thing to do, you can always keep writing to other prisoners, for example, Turtle https://abcrhineland.blackblogs.org/category/prisoners/turtel-prisoners/ There are also a bunch of people in the jail that i was in that would like letters. So if you feel like writing some, drop us a message and i can give you more info.

Lots of love and fire to you all.
Back in the game!

havingwalkincraic

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E’s Second letter

                                               
He everyone
I just got back from my trial, which seemed to go on forever and really made me think of how ridiculous it is that people are putting so much time and effort into getting me convicted for a cake. 
If i did not feel so much contempt for them i think i would feel sad for them and their empty, meaningless lives lol.
But today i got to see my two wonderful friends in the courtroom and catching their eyes, making each other laugh and smile was definitely a good way to spend 5 hours.
It meant alot to have some support in that room, i guess i did never truly appreciated the impact it has on keeping high spirits until now.
Also it was a reminder that things go on while i am here, and that people are living theire lives while supporting me, and this is good to remember. Thanks for being there, beautiful people, i love you!
I have been imprisoned for 2 weeks nearly. In some ways i am getting used to being here, having a routine an eating well, making friends and keeping busy reading and writing really helps me through alot, espcially in times of isolation. my cell gets alot of light which makes it a nice feeling place until it is time to be locked in at 8, and the sun is still shining and then this is kind of shitty. i realised this is the first time since leaving my parents home that that i have had a ‘room of my own’ very weird to be in place and have my ‘things’, shame its in a fucking prison cell, otherwise it would be very nice!
But i am surrounded by cards, letters, drawings zines, art etc. from amazing people sending in support. this really was very overwhelming to receive i cried for a while 
to feel the love energy humor and resistance pouring out of the pages was very necessary to feel as i was quite down that day. needing a hug, and someone to kick me up the ass, an say: cmon lets show them they will never win!! and that was just what i needed. So thanks buddies, i can not wait for the chance to thank you all in person where we can laugh sing and create chaos. 
Since getting all this support and knowing how necessary it is to keep people their heads high, high above the states oppression and their attempts to crush our spirits i really would like to get more involved with ABC activity even just spending more time writing letters and connecting others to do the same. How realistic would it be to start a AABC on the road? probably difficult but manageable.
maybe people could send me some tips or information that i can get started on. i also really want to contact other prisoners around Europe (or (anywhere else for that matter (it just needs more time for elsewhere)
if people can send addresses and things of other people captured then i would really appreciate that there is a prison radio show that some people where are involved in it would be great to get involved in that and make a good use of my time here. 
In two letters, friends have told me that this whole thing has brought a lot of people together to pump some energy into a ‘lull’ in radical action recently here in Oslo, that was very good to hear ofcourse i would reather be outside doing fun stuff in a beautifull forest but if a consequence of me being locked up is amazing people getting together to put plans into action and stand deviant into the face of state repression and police brutality as well as all the other things we have to deal with in the shitty world well then thats some kind of compensation. haha. So i dont really care that i am in (i do kind of care haha) it seems like we develop and put our ideas into practice a lot when something suddenly happens that moves people to rage in spontaneous subversion even if those feelings of anger are already manifesting as something. i guess it helps when a event takes place that pushes us forward to say a big fuck you to the destructive force that capitalist patriarchy is. So whilst people being imprisoned is so shit and humiliating lets all come together to help break each other out. or at least remind them through letters and things that fire burns in the hearts of all of us. and that we dont forget anyone. 
Apparently i am on the Norwegian tv a lot in the last days everyone here thinks its hilarious (which it is when you take fascist deterrent/punishment out of the picture) they have called me the prison celebrity which is pretty funny on one hand but on the other totally ruins any kind of semi anonymity that i might had (although being in a band makes that pretty hard already after the cistemfailure/vivazapata karaoke tour i dont think we will have any privacy left  )
obviously this makes things more risky, or more difficult for the future if it comes back to fuck something up. I guess i have to make some reviews on my security culture practices. 
most days at lunch time the guards sit and eat with us at this table, in the kitchen. its like a family meal setting since there is only 15 people in my cell block. but when the guards are not their its great. but when they are i want to be sick at their presence at their fucking audacity to play happy families with the people they get paid to enforce such a violation of freedom upon.  it really makes me so disgusted i ont think anyone else shares this view here though, which is quite frustrating. 
update 8/7/16
I got my sentence today 45 days instead of 40. fucking pissed. but expecting that, at least now i got to tell the guard what i really thougt of that fucking minister and the fallacy of existence that she endorses replicates and festers in a sicking display of assimilation and ‘solidarity’ competition for votes. i am also reeling right now at something i just saw in the news. about the person who killed a bunch of cops in dallas us. the senior cops got to sit their and defend the actions of cops when they shoot black people, like there is no tomorrow. and then called the reactions of people grieving, devastated, raging a ‘hype’
holy shit. that reminded me why i feel why i do. hearing this words come out of his mouth, i am thinking gof all the families and the loved ones of every single african amarican, latinx, or white person that has been killed by a trigger happy white supremacist piece of shit cop. and hoping that they do not suffer the humiliating pressure and demands to apologize for any violent action against the cops. i hope that the acts of this person can lead people to a clearer and more critical understanding of what the police actually do, what they stand for and who they really protect. this is so sad. 
today i listened to Radorakel to hear Fearg and Xav talk about the events at Dublin pride in ireland as they said, a very fine example and even confirmation of the true nature of the guardee (police) was that whilst the LGBT section of cops got to honorably take part in dublin pride ltd (thats right L fucking T fucking D)  Behind the building they marched along side were the radical queers where being violently attacked by the same force that proclaims its support, tolerance (thanks for tolerating our existence yo) and even their part in lgbtq ‘community’  and alliance. Of course, our queeros of the day got charged have been charged with several accounts of assault, but we know that already.
big love and respect to you all, remember to take care of each other in such repressive times. <3 (also thanks to the cool bunch at grangegorman for the hilarious banner, you are great)
i have hated cops for a long time. but the last couple of weeks, have really demonstrated to me, more and more that they are the enemy in every shape and form. i have concluded that the only thing prison guards are good at is walking in on me taking a shit, they seem to be very skilled at that so far. lol. 
at the moment, i am very angry but i still have a lot of love in here. i want to say a huge thanks and hugs/kisses/whatever you all like, for the post i am receiving, it keeps things real, and lovely to remember that you are all their. massive love to the treasure of my heart and sunshine of my day, you know who you are. to all those getting them selfs together, to support me from the outside, you are truly wonderful and i wish i could hang out with you all right now, next time though 
keep fighting, loving, sabotaging, laughing. <3
E
                                                                                        

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E sentenced to 45 days in prison

The Situation

On Saturday, the 25th of June, E from Cistem Failure was arrested at the Pride Parade in Oslo, for allegedly throwing a pie in the face of the Norwegian Minister for Equality, who was marching at the front of the parade. The Norwegian police and media called it an attack on democracy. They were held over the weekend until court the following Monday, at which the state asked (and the judge granted) for them to be held on remand in custody until their hearing.

On Thursday, the 7th of July, E had their hearing. They were convicted of attacking the highest state bodies’ activities, under Straffelovens §115. The next day, they were sentenced to 45 days in prison (more than the precedent of 30 days) and immediate deportation upon release. They have now been in prison for 15 days and we expect them to be released (well, deported…) around the 7th of August.

The hearing itself (which you can read about in more detail here) was very boring. The highlight was when the cop from the politiets sikkerhetstjeneste came in with a print-out of the definition of queer anarchism from Wikipedia, and the translator struggled to translate the phrase “gender binary” into Norwegian. This was all because the police recovered a pink and black flag with a queer anarchist symbol on it from the scene of the crime. The cop seemed very impressed with herself that she was able to figure out the meaning of the symbol! We also learned that the cases against the two other people who were arrested for pie-throwing are still ‘open’, but that there is not currently enough evidence to prosecute.

Who is Solveig Horne?

Solveig Horne is a homophobic, transphobic, sexist and racist politician from the right-wing Norwegian Progress Party. This year, she had the nerve to march at the front of the Pride Parade in Oslo, despite having been booed at previous Pride events. She is supposedly the Norwegian Minister for Equality, Children and Social Inclusion. She is known for victim blaming [“girls who get raped are responsible for the situation they put themselves in”], homophobia [“Is it okay that kindergartens read gay fairy-tales for young children?”], racism [suggests that there is a particular responsibility on Muslims to attend Pride in the aftermath of the Orlando attacks] and transphobia [promises to deal with trans people in the same way as with any other ‘patients’]. The Progress Party is a racist party that wants to steal refugees’ valuables. We suggest that homo- and transphobic politicians who get pied at a fucking Pride Parade are responsible for the situations they put themselves in.

Anyway, we find the whole idea of politicians attending Pride strange — have they forgotten about Stonewall? People can have Pride as long as it means assimilating into capitalism and shit. I mean, why be homophobic when queers also have voting rights and have money to buy things with? The Pride Parade in Oslo gave their ‘Solidarity Prize’ this year to the fucking police

What You Can Do

As they are going to be spending the next month in jail, it would be cool if people could write letters, spread the word about the situation, play our music, do a soliparty, whatever. Another thing that we’re doing is making a thrice weekly (Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays at 5pm) radio show called Attack on Democracy which E can actually receive in jail. This is made possible by RadiOrakel, a feminist radio station in Oslo (99.3 FM). So if you have any sounds that you think E would like to hear, send them to cistemfailure@riseup.net and we’ll try to work them into the show.

You can send letters to E to this address here:

Oslo ABC, E
Postboks 6689 St.Olavs plass
0129 Oslo
Norway

If you for some reason are unable to send physical post, you can also email us (cistemfailure@riseup.net) and we’ll print it out and make sure it gets to E.

We will post any news we have about the situation, as well as any updates we get from E on our blog here.

Solidarity with all the prisoners held by the German state! None are free until all are free.

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Em’s hearing today

Hey everyone,

So Em was in court today for their hearing. Which was in Norwegian obviously, so we didn’t really understand anything that went on. We know they haven’t been sentenced yet, that will come in a few days. We also learned that when their sentence is finished, they will not be released in Norway, but will be deported (most likely to the UK) immediately.

The prosecution is asking for a sentence of 45 days. The lawyer expects them to receive a sentence of around 30 days, of which 14 have already been served.

We cannot stress just how fucking boring the court case was. Before lunch, we watched a 40 minute video statement from Solveig Horne, presumably talking about how traumatised she was. After lunch, the prosecuting attorney talked for literally a solid hour without interruption. The person sitting beside them seemed to just be there to give Em and us dirty looks the whole time. I didn’t see her facial expression change even once.

The best bit was when the cop from the politiets sikkerhetstjeneste presented as evidence the pink and black flag of which Em was in possession at the time of their arrest. She also printed out what appeared to be the Wikipedia article on anarchist symbolism. The cop seemed immensely proud of and delighted with herself that she had managed to decipher the meaning of such an esoteric symbol. She read aloud from a piece of paper which said (in English) something like “queer anarchism is a revolutionary practice that seeks to overthrow the state and the gender binary”. The translator then attempted to translate this into Norwegian, but got stuck on the phrase “gender binary”. The judge, the cop, the prosecuting attorney and the translator all kind of looked up at each other curiously, but they just shrugged — none of them could shed any light on the meaning of this bizarre utterance.

We gave Em lots of smiles and made funny hand signals at them. And we gave them some hugs and stuff when the opportunities arose. They smiled at us a lot and seemed to really appreciate us being there — hopefully it lifted their spirits. They seem to be doing well. And they’re going to be listening to the Attack on Democracy radio show on RadiOrakel this evening for sure! So if you have anything you think Em would like to listen to, send it to us and we’ll make sure it ends up in an episode of the show.

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