Artist News Releases

Moddi releases third ‘banned’ song from new album

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 30 August 2016

We’re still a couple of weeks away from the release of Moddi’s ‘Unsongs’ album, but a third single has now been released from it. As previously reported, the LP sees him record covers of twelve songs from around the world that were banned.

Following versions of songs by Pussy Riot and Kate Bush, Moddi now releases a cover of ‘A Matter Of Habit’, which was originally performed by Izhar Ashdot, with lyrics by author Alona Kimhi, which she based on first-hand testimonies from soldiers of the Israeli soldiers who had served in the West Bank.

The song’s ‘banned’ status came when a live performance was cancelled by army radio station Galatz in 2012, which later stated that “we should avoid celebrating a song that demonises our soldiers”.

However, there’s more to it than that, says Moddi: “‘A Matter Of Habit’ may have been written about a particular conflict, but it carries a universal message: that anyone can become an oppressor. It says something bigger about not just Israel, but the entire Western World. Everyone recognises the feeling of numbness that comes from being exposed to violence and death every day. We see it in the news, we hear about it on the radio. In the end it just passes as background noise. We don’t feel empathy anymore, just a growing fear that the same thing might happen to us one day”.

He continues: “Modern politics is driven by this fear. That is why a song like ‘A Matter Of Habit’ can become so controversial, because it also suggests that being human is a matter of habit; that there’s a way to recover our sensitivity, our humanity. But not without being exposed to the atrocities that are part and parcel of our political system”.

To accompany the song, Moddi has also released a short documentary about it, the first in a series of similar videos that will be published on unsongs.com, which you can watch here:

Listen to ‘A Matter Of Habit’ here: