commençons par l'honnêteté
“At the triumphal ‘end of history’ in the West," wrote Wendy Brown just over a decade ago, "most have ceased to believe in the human capacity to craft and sustain a world that is humane, free, sustainable, and above all, modestly under human control.” The apparent demise of any world-historical challenge to the rule of capital, along with the hollowing out of the social compromise that defined the postwar era, also meant the triumph of this distinct set of implicit values and affects, a new conception of "common sense": according to Brown, “Economic values have not simply supersaturated the political or become predominant over the political. Rather, a neoliberal iteration of homo economicus is extinguishing the agent, the idiom, and the domains through which democracy – any variety of democracy – materializes.”
The attempt to constitute "the political" as a distinct sphere from "the economic" is, of course, the great project of historical liberalism. As yet, we've thankfully never seen it fully materially realized, but the bipartisan embrace of market logic that's been so integral to our political culture for the past thirty years, give or take, certainly does signal a rather stunning ideological victory. We got neoliberalism with either a quasi-progressive or reactionary inflection (that's per Nancy Fraser, of course), we got the assurance of a few more decades of the spoils of the petrolium-based imperial order centred in the United States, and we got a generalized and bones-deep political cynicism which Cas Mudde characterizes as "a development towards non-ideological politics in western democracies [in which] administration has replaced politics." And it's important to remember, as Gary Gerstle convincingly argues, that we've got the Clintons and Blairs and Chrétiens of the world to thank for this as much as we do the Reagans and Thatchers – that's hegemony for you.
This account typically emphasizes the decline of the nation-state in relation to supranational corporations and financial institutions, and – though there's still plenty to be said about the persistence of state power as the guarantor of the infrastructure of financialized globalization – I do think it's broadly true that traditional nationalism took a back seat to a consent-generation scheme centred on the massive expansion of consumer credit and accelerated extractivism at home, along with increasingly reckless imperial violence under cover of Islamophobic white supremacy abroad. This bargain seemed to hold for a while, but it's been clear for a minute now that we're in the throes of some epochal shifts in the global political-economic structure, and for it to settle into anything like stability will necessitate correspondingly significant shifts in the regimes of consent that have subtended previous arrangements of power relations.
So it seems safe to say that nationalism is back, or at least regaining some of its diminished former importance. But let's remember that nationalism – like “populism” – is better understood as a strategy than as a specific form of politics: who's using it, and what it's being used for, are as important as what it’s offering as the basis of collective identification.
Now, although I won’t deny how deeply refreshing it feels these days to hear someone in power speaking as though they’re a grown-up for once, when Mark Carney recently described the events of the past year as "a rupture, not a transition," he was essentially just reading the writing on the wall. Many lefties on the internet audibly gasped at the frankness of Carney's omission that “We knew the story of the international rules-based order was partially false...And we knew that international law applied with varying rigour depending on the identity of the accused or the victim.” Striking comments, I'll concede, given the kind of doublespeak we're used to, but really, everyone knows the Pope is Catholic. The much-lauded candour of these comments was no less remarkable than how much he managed to euphemize and obfuscate by way of this apparent “honesty.” No sooner had Carney called out this state of affairs, for example, than he moved to distance Canada from complicity in it: we, like Václav Havel's anecdotal shopkeeper, have simply been going along to get along, "living within the lie" authored elsewhere. And the real immediate crisis we face, he said, the real death knell of the fiction of international law, isn't even the horrifying spectacles of death and misery we've spent the last two years witnessing and enabling, but that some of the economic violence baked into the neoliberal rules of engagement – by which the Canadian ruling class has thus far benefited handsomely – have started coming home to roost.
While we're giving out cookies for "naming reality," here's human root canal Stephen Miller earlier in January, sharing his vision of 21st century US realpolitik with an incredulous Jake Tapper on CNN: “We live in a world in which you can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else,” he said, “but we live in a world – in the real world, Jake – that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world that have existed since the beginning of time." It's scary stuff, to be sure. But if we bracket, for a moment, the ghoulish bloodlust embedded in Miller’s chest-thumping, little in this statement should have been all that startling to anyone who's been paying attention – as David Klion put it back in March, Miller is "the ideal conservative for the Trump era: His ideology is not refined, abstracted, or euphemized away from its real object. He’s told us exactly what he intends to do."
One wonders how direct a response Carney intended his comments to be: "The powerful have their power," he said. "But we have something too — the capacity to stop pretending, to name reality, to build our strength at home and to act together." To "live the truth," he suggested, means "building what we claim to believe in. Rather than waiting for the old order to be restored, it means creating institutions and agreements that function as described." But, as Luke Savage points out, underneath the statesmanlike posturing "Carneyism has, to date, offered us no underlying vision that is fundamentally distinct from the picture we’ve known for the past forty years. The prime minister himself deals in the language of urgency and talks up the need for sweeping change. But thus far he has largely pursued this end through a form of economic 'realism' that intensifies rather than constrains the market forces that helped get us here in the first place.” So what can we expect this narrative about Canada's shared principles and "fundamental values" to actually accomplish? Will it intervene to prevent Canadian companies from shipping arms to the IDF or vehicles and equipment to ICE? Will it send aid to Cuba? Will it pursue an economic agenda that might sustainably benefit working people in this country, or bring clean drinking water to the dozens of Indigenous communities that currently don't have access to it, or lessen the amount of carbon being spewed into the atmosphere? It doesn't look that way.
What it does look like is an attempt to chart a course out of the chaos and turmoil of this conjuncture with as much of Canada's extant political-economic and class structure still in place as possible. It's a pitch at renegotiating the narrative of Canada's place within the international order while making the barest minimum of change to material conditions. It's a move to shore up support by resuscitating the myth of the Canadian nation, interpellating the national subject as defender of high-minded principles and fundamental civic values, as against the threat of the craven fascist barbarism unfolding south of the border. As usual, Harsha put it best in characterizing Carney's speech as "an attempt to reposition liberalism as a counter to fascism."
The thing is – and despite what the tankies might have you believe – we need to learn how to face more than one enemy at a time. If we're going to find a way to the other side of the current polycrisis, one that leads neither into full-blown nihilist apocalypse, nor to a deepened retrenchment of the conditions that created this mess, I think we're going to have to try a little harder. Let's be honest: the nation is not going to save us.
Okay, now here's some songs.
There's a particular thrill to noticing yourself becoming more proficient in some new practice or competency, and over the last couple of years I've been slowly acquiring more literacy in jazz and jazz-adjacent musics. I can tell it's making me a better listener, and it's a nice feeling. Some real bangers either just came out or are on the near horizon, so the mix leans a fair bit in that direction this time around, all squawking horns and mathy guitars and some really incredible drumming.
It starts off with Austrialian folk-drone/improv legends The Necks, with a brief excerpt from "Ghost Net," the epic centrepiece of their latest album, Disquiet, which released in October. The full piece runs over an hour long, and if you've got the time it's incredible to hear how their fluid and intuitive playing keeps such a tight and simple interval so compelling for so long. After that it's Calgary's Jairus Sharif, whose Basis of Unity LP is a trance-inducing swirl of droning electronics and fluttering sax, with the occasional addition of the kind of rollicking percussion that makes "Mawu" a highlight. Then it's Makaya McCraven, prolific Chicago-based drummer and avant-jazz composer/producer who's been motivating truly breathtaking work from all-star ensembles at a steady clip over the last decade or so. Included here is "The Beat Up," recorded live last January and released as part of his The People's Mixtape EP in October.
Next, it's Montreal quartet Bellbird, with the stunning title track from their new LP, The Call, which came out earlier this month via Constellation. From its confrontational polyrhythmic opening passage, to its lithe interweaving of serpentine melodic horn lines atop Mili Hong's awe-inspiring drum work, to its intricate and melancholic denouement, "The Call" serves as an apt mission statement for an album that's heady and technically formidable yet viscerally driving and emotionally resonant. (The album's official Montreal release show, by the way, is coming up later this week – see below for details) Then it's more from Montreal: up next is "What Would Eastman Do?," a standout from Black Noise, a collision of free jazz and improv noise, postmodern soul, and avant-garde hip-hop which Quinton Barnes and the Black Noise Ensemble released last June. I've been thoroughly enraptured by Quinton's work over the last year, and I've got some writing about it coming out soon, so stay tuned for that.
After that it's "Taking out the Trash," from LA-based quintet SML's latest LP, How You Been (released in November). The group run live recordings of their riveting improvised performances through a gamut of digital manipulation techniques to arrive at the kind of thrilling hybrid sound on display here, straddling jazz, post-rock and ambient electronics. That's followed by Titanic, the Mexico City experimental rock duo featuring cellist and composer Mabe Fratti. "La Gallina Degollada," a joyfully weird and deceptively muscular interpretation of the early 20th-century folk horror fable by Uruguayan writer Horacio Quiroga, was released in September on Hagen, the group's first LP. Next we launch into the dizzying blast of frenetic electro-folk that is "Salay 'Titi Ch’iri Siqititi'," from Los Thuthanaka's self-titled debut, which came out last March. I'll admit it took me a minute to find a way into into the truly sui generis sound conjured up by California-based producers Chuquimamani-Condori (also known as Elysia Crampton) and their brother, Joshua Chuquimia Crampton, but it's certainly worth the work to get there: the duo work up dazzling, compulsively driving, strangely hypnotic walls of sound with roots in the aesthetics of their Aymara heritage. It's a whole glorious world to explore.
Then, we have beloved Baltimore math nerds Horse Lords, with "Extended Field," a collaboration with composer Arnold Dreyblatt released as vol. 18 in RVNG Intl.'s FRKWYS series. I'll admit the group may drag their feet a wee bit on their way there, but once the final section makes landfall – a glorious and disorienting run up and down a 5/4 MC Escher staircase – it's an incredible pay-off. Finally, Washington DC post-rock trio Faraquet takes us out with "Carefully Planned," a choppy, angular classic fom The View From This Tower, which came out in 2000 (25 years ago, if you can believe that).
• Mixcloud: commençons par l'honnêteté (feb 2026)
• MP3s: 26/02 - commençons par l'honnêteté.zip
NB: The zip file linked above contains the individual MP3s as well as a single hour-long track of the whole mix.
For the Montrealers among you, here's three shows coming up over the next couple of weeks that you ought not to miss:
Feb 20 - Bellbird at le Ministère (tickets)
The local release show for the avant-jazz quartet's brand new record, which, per above, is an absolute stunner.
Feb 21 - Nennen at P'tit Ours (tickets)
An amazing opportunity to catch dearest comrade Amy Macdonald's labyrinthine slowcore heart-bearings in a really lovely intimate setting. Her latest album You Reflect the Light, released last May.
Feb 27 - MFPM compilation release show at Sala Rossa (tickets)
The launch of Musicians For Palestine Montreal's new compilation album, which features a whole pile of local all-stars whose names you'll recognize if you hop over to the Bandcamp page to check it out (as well as some seriously stunning artwork from Thee Nadia Moss). It's a really wonderful collection of music, and it's going to be a really special night.
Okay, that's it! Sorry it was a little late this time around, I'll have another ready to go before too long, I promise. Thanks as always for reading and listening, and thanks much to Fred for editorial support.
xo, graham