Kimwei

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Christopher Dance, Lisa Rowe and I have been enjoying working with artist and filmmaker Mohini Chandra to create the soundtrack for her new film Expedition Into a Volcano. The film is part of Journeys with Mai at The Box, Plymouth – an exhibition opening to the public on Saturday 14 February 2026 and running until 14 June 2026.

This is a large exhibition spread across four gallery spaces, centred around Joshua Reynolds’ iconic Portrait of Mai and exploring early encounters between Europe and the South Pacific. Mohini’s new film, Expedition Into a Volcano, was commissioned especially for the exhibition, and it sits alongside historic artworks, contemporary responses, and newly created soundscapes—all examining power, perception and the complexities of Pacific histories.

For this project, Mohini invited us to create a fully improvised soundtrack EP in response to the film. The music was recorded in one intuitive, instinct‑led session—reacting to the imagery, its tensions, its beauty and the uneasy echoes of exploration and colonialism woven through archival footage.

Seeing the film installed at The Box is something really special, and I’d love for you to go and experience it in the space. Over the next six months the exhibition will be open Tuesday–Sunday (plus Bank Holiday Mondays), and admission is free, though advance booking is recommended.

Exclusive Physical Release

The physical CD edition of the Expedition Into a Volcano soundtrack is only available from The Box during the exhibition run—nowhere else—so if you’d like a copy, make sure to pick one up when you visit.

All of us have felt that it’s been an extraordinary project to be part of. Hope you get a chance to see it in person.

— Kimwei (they/them)

ANNOUNCEMENT: “Kimwei” previous socials accounts no longer active – let’s get off Big Tech together.

WHERE TO FIND ME INSTEAD: KIMWEI.COM, BLUESKY, MASTADON, BANDCAMP

WHY THIS CHANGE?
As a climate protester and activist I have paused my socials accounts in boycott of Twitter (Musk), Meta (Zuckerberg), Google (YouTube) and am in the process of moving to ethical alternatives.

I used to think I had to keep socials profiles with the above extractive companies in order to function as a musician… and for many years I was right about that. However there are now true alternatives available to power and data driven big tech and we can choose those instead, so let’s do it together. Where we put our energy and money going forward can shape the world for the better or worse. So I’m taking a stand.

Climate activists and consumers are increasingly boycotting Elon Musk due to his far-right political affiliations, data privacy violations, and authoritarian governance style. The Metaverse (Zuckerberg) has become known for systematic suppression of activist content and is being avoided for these reasons. Google (YouTube and more) is increasingly engaging in privacy overreach amongst many other issues.

It’s been hard to make this decision as I’m aware that it could potentially cost me more than I can afford in terms of how much harder it might make it to communicate with you all. I’m taking the plunge anyway because not only is it increasingly hard to justify the ethics of continuing to give energy to Meta, X and Google, it’s also really hard to get any visibility on those platforms anyway these days due to worsening of the “algorithm” and the activist nature of my work as “Kimwei” the artist.

Additionally I’ve noticed that my personal experience of Big Tech Socials has been increasingly unpleasant – filled with ads and algorithmic takeovers. Time to exit.

WHERE TO FIND ME : MORE DETAILS
I’m currently testing new decentralised, ethical, privacy focused platforms with little or no algorithmic control, but mostly I’ll be focusing on making sure you’ll be able to find my latest news, music, gigs and writings here on my website which I’ll keep up to date*.

You can still join my mailing list from my website homepage to get monthly updates.

Please connect with at the links below even though there’s very little content on my feeds as of yet.

https://mastodon.social/@kimwei

https://bsky.app/profile/kimweimccarthy.bsky.social

MUSIC : All my music can still be found on kimwei.bandcamp.com as usual.

VIDEOS: My socials histories, including video history on YouTube will stay where they are for now, so you can still find all my past videos at youtube.com/kimweidotcom

Please stay with me and together we can keep the web free and choose a better future.

Love and light

-Kimwei (they/them)

After putting in a colossal effort to contact you all and ask you to Like Kimwei’s Eco song video “The Wild Things Are Coming To Town” so that we could win the £10k we needed to be able to make more climate protest music… we won!

… But we didn’t win.

How could this be?

Well, on May 6th 2024 the song with the most YouTube Likes was supposed to win £10k from the eco-concious competition group HomeStage… and on May 6th our song was indeed the song with the most YouTube Likes… but Home Stage changed the rules at that point saying that actually the song with the most YouTube Likes on June 30th would win. They then censored our video, taking out any references to an upcoming protest march that our song had been written to mobilise people to attend. Finally they hid the Like count on all YouTube Videos in the competition and in the end another artist (Ollie Frost – who we like actually) won but the numbers were never revealed publicly. Shortly after that, our video was taken down from YouTube.

The whole experience left me and the band feeling demoralised – the actions of HomeStage had been extractive of our time and energy and still left us without the funds that we needed to move forward with protest music.

The only comfort that came forward was one friend who said “Oh you’ve been censored! Congratulations! That means you’re making an impact!”

Thank you to all of you who voted and put us in the winning position on the original and rightful competition end-date of May 6th 2024. It still means a great deal to us that we had your support.

Love and Rage

-Kimwei (they/them)

PLEASE “LIKE” MY YOUTUBE VIDEO to help me and my band win an eco-song competition 🌎🎉🏆

VIDEO: https://tinyurl.com/KimweiTheWildThings

1. Click thru & press 👍LIKE👍
2. Forward this text to 10 friends

It takes less than 10 secs to click-thru and “Like”, but it could make all the difference to whether we win. The prize money would fund our second album of music that raises awareness about environmental issues and supports 💚Climate/Protest movements💚

We’ll need around 2K YOUTUBE LIKES to win, so PASSING THIS MESSAGE ON is also really important – please do this in 💬PRIVATE MESSAGES💬 as people are more likely to respond.

🙏 Thank you so much for helping us. By doing so you’re also supporting world change by helping the movements we make music for.

🎶 The song, The Wild Things are Coming to Town, features many of our favourite people such as Dr Emily Grossman, Gail Bradbrook, Kate Raworth and more. It highlights the harm we’re doing to the creatures we share our planet with and raises awareness about the next big protest march for nature that’s taking place in London on Saturday 22nd June.

We’d be so grateful if you could spare just a few minutes of your day to help us. Together we CAN change the world for the better! ❤️

Love & Rage, Kimwei (he/him), Chris, Lisa, Anita

I’ve had the privilege of performing at many Dartmoor protest/land rights protests “on the same bill” as Holly over the past year or more and I highly recommend you give this track a listen, buy it, download it, all the trimmings, and follow your heart (and follow your feet)

Fab cello from my friend Clarissa Carlyon also and I was lucky enough to get to be part of the choir at the end of this beautiful song!

A wonderful new track from @HollyEbonyMusic is out today, celebrating #Dartmoor & fighting for our @Right_2Roam because these are @EveryonesStars & we all deserve the right to #wildcamp

BUY HERE: https://t.co/bXzpy0GsZN@guyshrubsole @curiousways @GeorgeMonbiot @dartmoornpa pic.twitter.com/8oYDQarpCi

— Kimwei (@kimweidotcom) April 8, 2024

Thank you to all who pledged to make our album! We now have the minimum funds we need to make this album happen, so pre-order it below if you haven’t already.

The launch gig will be Thurs Dec 7th, at Ashburton Arts Centre: TICKETS

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Pre-order Digital Album on Bandcamp

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PRE-ORDER ANTHEMS FOR CHANGE ALBUM – CD + UK POSTAGE & DIGITAL DOWNLOAD £24

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DONATE HERE SECURELY to support us to keep making music:

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DONATE HERE SECURELY to support us to keep making music:

Love & Rage

-Kimwei, Chris, Lisa, Anita

Thank you so much to all who have pledged and shared since our last update!

However, progress has been slow overall, and with 55% still to go and only 10 days left, we need your help to get us to £3.5K! Please keep sharing tinyurl.com/KimweiCrowdfunder on socials, in group chats (Whatsapp etc) and with friends who would love our music/project. This is an “all or nothing campaign”, so if we don’t reach our goal we won’t be able to finance our album or support protest campaigns by playing live through the coming season.

Since our last update:

Anita and I were in the studio recording new song Rip Out His Pockets Old Crockern to support Right to Roam and The Stars Are For Everyone in the fight to keep the right to Wildcamp on Dartmoor.

I supported the right to Wildswim on a protest at Spitchwick, writing the song River Run Through Me, on location, on the morning of the protest. It was covered by BBC Spotlight, and in a small win the landowners agreed to change the signs which had said “No Swimming”.

Coming Soon:

After a Dartmoor week comes a return to Climate Protest as Chris and I head to London to musically support the Global Fight Against Fossil Fuels – an international string of marches demanding a rapid, just, and equitable end to fossil fuels, as world leaders attend the United Nations Secretary General’s Climate Ambition Summit in New York.

Devon Transformed Festival – we’ll play a full set on 22nd Sept, hopefully celebrating this crowdfunding campaign being a success the day before! We’ll be following a talk by George Monbiot and passing the evening on to Holly Ebony.

Thanks again for all your support and keep on putting the word out so we can get the funding we need to bring this music to where it’s needed!

Here’s an example of a post: I loved this album project by Kimwei and his band so much that I’ve just funded it! Help support them to finish recording it and to take the music out to perform this Autumn. https://tinyurl.com/KimweiCrowdfunder #AnthemsForChange: Album & Live Music to Build A New World. Where is the soundtrack for the climate revolution? We believe it’s down to us, musicians born into these interesting times, to make it.

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Connect with us on a platform of your choice so you can tag us etc. https://www.facebook.com/kimweidotcom/

https://www.instagram.com/kimweimccarthy

https://twitter.com/kimweidotcom/

Love & Rage

-Kimwei (he/him), Chris (he/him), Lisa (she/her), Anita (she/her)

Thank you SO much to all who have pledged to get us so far in such a short time! In just 10 days we’ve reached nearly £1.4k. If it keeps going at this rate, we’ll hit our £3.5k target in time, but to do that we’ll need your help! Please keep on sharing our campaign (shortlink = tinyurl.com/KimweiCrowdfunder ) on socials and with your friends who would love us.

In the first 10 days we have:

Announced the launch of the campaign live on BBC Radio Devon: FULL INTERVIEW WITH LIVE PERFORMANCE

Received 36 pledges – Thank you! With a special mention to our big pledges of £250 and £400 (anonymous for now)! Big and small pledges all make a difference, so do encourage your friends to pledge £1 or more.

Received written support from:

“You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll change the world… go support!” -Rob Hopkins, Transition Towns.

“This is music that makes a difference” Caroline, Extinction Rebellion “The Big One” Team.

“The campaign has not only been fought on legal, objective grounds but also…through creative means -storytelling, song, music art – we’ve seen all of that through this campaign which has spoken to so many people in so many ways…” – Lewis Winks, Right To Roam & The Stars Are For Everyone.

Written a NEW SONG for The Dartmoor Wildcamping campaign, as landowner Darwall comes back for a court appeal to again try and get the right to camp on Dartmoor revoked. The song RIP OUT HIS POCKETS OLD CROCKERN has already garnered 5000+ views in just 1 day, raising awareness to support the campaign.

Thanks again for all your support and keep on putting the word out so we can get the funding we need to bring this music to where it’s needed!

Here’s an example of a post:

I loved this album project by Kimwei and his band so much that I’ve just funded it! Help support them to finish recording it and to take the music out to perform this Autumn. https://tinyurl.com/KimweiCrowdfunder #AnthemsForChange: Album & Live Music to Build A New World. Where is the soundtrack for the climate revolution? We believe it’s down to us, musicians born into these interesting times, to make it.

Connect with us on a platform of your choice so you can tag us etc.

https://www.facebook.com/kimweidotcom/

https://www.instagram.com/kimweimccarthy/

https://twitter.com/kimweidotcom/

Love & Rage -Kimwei (he/him), Chris (he/him), Lisa (she/her), Anita (she/her)

Well, it turns out we couldn’t wait any longer, with songs in the pipeline to record and invites to perform at so many change-making events this Autumn, we just had to launch our crowdfunder, because we need your help to keep on making music for a better future!

PLEDGE AT ANTHEMS FOR CHANGE ALBUM CROWDFUNDER TILL SEPT 21ST 2023

Stay tuned for our new album of music that births change, coming! We’ve started recording our rehearsals and had our first day in the studio this week, but we will soon be needing your help to bring these beautiful lush songs into the world. We’re looking to launch a crowdfunder in the next few weeks, to help us to record and release, and to bring it live to protests around the Southwest and further! In the meantime, here’s a taster of what we’ve been recording in the rehearsal room!

with love

-Kimwei, Chris, Lisa, Anita (picture including Anita coming soon)