Last week, the local imprint released a compilation called Code Red (listen below) that they say will benefit the American Civil Liberties Union. And it isn’t just a statement against Trump, says label co-founder Douglas Kallmeyer. The compilation hits back against corruption in U.S. politics and the financial system.

“Financial greed has enslaved generations to unjust mortgages and student loans. People are struggling and susceptible,” says Kallmeyer. “How can we help those that will suffer the most?” Kallmeyer says the ACLU seemed like an ideal beneficiary, calling the 96-year-old organization “a nonpartisan means to try to fight corruption.”

The nonpartisan part is key. Kallmeyer blames the current political mood on both Republicans and Democrats.

“It seems that any shred of moral value on either side of the aisle is finally gone. It’s insane to me,” says the Annandale resident. “The Democratic party cut their own throats, obviously railroading Bernie Sanders and installing Hillary Clinton.”

At 40 tracks, Code Red contains a vast diversity of expressive styles. Some artists, such as violinist James Wolf, create abstract soundscapes of dissonant tones. Others, like Peoria, Illinois, singer/songwriter Sarah Schonert, take a more intimate and melodic route. But the music overwhelmingly captures a negative view of current events, dwelling on feelings of tension, instability or urgency.

Kallmeyer worked with labelmate Dave Harris to put the call for submissions across social media. They were floored by the resulting enthusiasm.

“We were willing to settle with what we could get in 10 days,” says Kallmeyer. “We had 40 committed artists from six different countries… We probably had responses doubling that.”

Kallmeyer sees a global movement in the works, and he says Verses is ready to rise to the task.

“D.C. and the surrounding area of artistic community [are] mobilizing at a steady pace to respond to the absolute corruption we face,” Kallmeyer says, “and to be heard.”

James Wolf – Haa
The Black Sparks – Anticlap
K-Loe Black – Whoooah
Birds and Buildings – East Is Fort Orthodox
Smoke Bellow – Conscious Heads
Benoit & Sergio – Bridge So Far
Honey Pot Canoe – Sink or Swim
Logikbomb – Greenline to Ana
True Womanhood – The Monk
Outputmessage – Pillars (Will Eastman Remix)
The Orchid – A Fading Memory Of A Better Time And Place
Beauty Pill – Copyists
Young Summer – Waves That Rolled You Under
Sunwolf – Let It Out (instrumental)
Dmerit – Audobons
The Torches – Elephant In the Room
Dupont Brass – All Blues
The Moderate – Drugs/Young Men
Tom Espinola – Wildwood Flower
maxine – since i lost you

Anchor 3 – Backmasking
The Moderate – Late 90s
Scythian – Jigsaw
BOOMscat – MORETHANANYTHING
The Buzz – Got Me Runnin’
The Orchid – Don’t Be Afraid; We’ll Be Together
The Blackberry Belles – Buried Our Love
Flash Frequency – Time
Class Portrait – Time Zones
Super!Silver!Haze! – Train to Berlin
Disco Muerte – Lullaby
James Wolf – Haa
Brûlée – Flamingos Above
Fields Burning – Tigris (No Tomorrow)
April + Vista – Theme In Adagio
The Stick Mob – Sugarcane Road
Nadastrom – Intro
Lance Neptune – Janus
Le Loup – Go East
Broto Roy – Never Enough Cake

Wolf, however, sees it in a more cathartic way.

“I thought of it as a long exhalation,” he says. “I do yoga and I got the sense that this is a Lion’s Breath: this is the sound, ‘ha,’ stretched out over a long period of time.”

“Haa” is taken from a 2015 live recording, capturing a cathartic section towards the end of a longer work. Wolf aims his attention at the essence of the transition itself. It’s a philosophy espoused by his hero, legendary German avant-garde composer Karlheinz Stockhausen.

“His compositional method was understanding a piece as a group of forces, allowing those forces to have particular moments where they dominate, and then have them come back under and play a more supportive role,” says the resident of Arlington, Virginia, who is a regular collaborator with other local experimental acts and a member of post-rock band The Orchid.

“Haa” and On se lève were released in May through D.C. experimental label Verses Records. He paired the track with a video of surreal images like ghostly faces, growing frost and close-ups of blood vessels, appearing and reappearing along to the music.

The video was put together by fellow artist and Verses label head, Dennis Kane, who used the minimalist tautness of the music as visual inspiration.

“There’s this suspension of time and movement and yet, in the layering, there is this ebb and flow,” Kane writes in an email. “I used the women as shades of movement and the various microscopic images as a push and pull element — like the microtonal movements in the piece.”