[022] Amplifying Dissent with Mark Devlin

This interview is part of a series discussing mandates, restrictions and censorship with musicians and music fans—read more of these interviews here.

Mark Devlin is a UK based club and radio DJ and music journalist. He's been writing and speaking about the forces that have been manipulating the music industry for decades. Devlin has published a series of books, Musical Truth, where he shares his research on the industry. He also published his debut novel in 2020, The Cause & The Cure.

In 2021 Mark released Volume 3 in the Musical Truth series — focusing on the suspiciously high level of compliance within the music industry in the face of the destruction of live performance.

You can watch Mark's fascinating "No More Heroes" presentation from Anarchapulco in 2019 here:

Music For All: The saddest part about the last few years for me has been realizing all of the anti-establishment figures I looked up to revealed themselves to be frauds — which you discuss in your "No More Heroes" presentation. It seems abundantly clear now that even seemingly anti-establishment music serves as a propaganda arm of the State. How do you think independent labels participate in this system? Do you think they're a way to test out music scenes prior to pushing to major labels?

Mark Devlin: Given that all aspects of culture and entertainment which influence large swathes of the population are controlled and used for social engineering and mind control, it wouldn’t surprise me if that turned out to be the case. Certainly, any fad, trend, movement or “scene” which comes with its own dress code, slogan or logo can be shown to have been the creation of think-tank organisations which specialise in these types of societal manipulations. Simply put, if they weren’t these types of creations, they wouldn’t have been allowed to have thrived and flourished.

That said, it’s my view that there is an invisible threshold, above which any artists who dwell there are going to be utterly controlled, pushing agendas, and likely to have sold their soul, but below which there is still the opportunity to have a degree of artistic autonomy and creative freedom. It really is the best place in the industry to remain, and many independent labels and artists will be found there.

I think bringing back decentralized DIY music scenes is key to moving music forward. How do you think music can recover from decades of nefarious outside manipulation? Do you think it's inevitable that any music scene will be at risk of infiltration and/or destruction if it reaches a certain level of influence?

Any act or label which attempts to succeed on the industry’s own terms will inevitably risk that kind of infiltration and corruption. The only way to avoid it is to unplug entirely from the industry’s infrastructure. This is what authors have been doing for many years, for example, by self-publishing their books, and it’s a process which needs to be replicated by musicians.

As “woke” culture and the lies of the mainstream media become both all-pervasive and more and more obvious, it’s inevitable that there will be a hunger among many factions of the population for truthful music with integrity. Artists who tick these boxes will find themselves more and more in demand.

I've been thinking a lot over the past few years how arbitrary what we consider to be "normal" music is. What is your take on the imposition of A = 440 Hz standard tuning as the de facto tuning standard?

Audiophiles, sound scholars and spiritual types all swear that 432hz is the harmonic frequency at which we should all be listening to music. This magical frequency - which syncs with that of 528hz “the love frequency,” is naturally in tune with human physiology and can be used for healing.

440hz, the “standard” tuning pitch for many decades, has entirely the opposite effects, so little surprise to discover that it was imposed on mainstream output.

Fortunately, many switched-on music makers are now aware of this dynamic, and have taken steps to retune their sounds to 432.

Have you been able to perform live over the past couple years without restrictions?

Since Spring 2021, I’ve been able to play DJ gigs and present talk events within the UK.

Overseas travel — which used to be my major passion in life — has been off the cards since early 2020 as I will not comply with any of the bullshit.

Are there any like minded musicians in this space you would recommend?

In the conscious hip-hop arena — which is my genre of special interest, I would recommend looking up the output of DISL Automatic, Joe Murray, Guydence, Nate, Lukas Lion, Alais Clay and K-Rino.

Thank you for reading! Find more from Mark Devlin below: