Forthcoming, ships December 2026

Josh MacPhee
Preface by Grégory Pierrot

Art & Culture / Capitalism / Labor / Social Movements

In this short, graphic volume, Josh MacPhee explores the role of music and sound in the student and worker revolt on May 1968 in France through the lens of the vinyl records that emerged out of—and were produced to comment on—the struggle. From the chanson enrages that sung on the barricades, the birth of an independent and politicized music infrastructure in France, the explosive emergence of free jazz and rock scenes, and the enduring legacy and embedding of the sounds and aesthetics of '68 into experimental and pop music to this day, this book shows the impact of liberatory politics and action on our audio landscape.

Kennedy Block & Josh MacPhee | Pound the Pavement #39/PIT Tapes #3

Strike While the Needle Is Hot! is a 60-minute cassette collecting 24 songs detailed in the book Strike While the Needle Is Hot: A Discography of Workers' Revolt (Common Notions, 2025), mixed from vinyl records by me (Josh MacPhee) and Kennedy Block, and mastered to tape by Jim McHugh at The P.I.T. in Los Sures, Brooklyn.

Workers have been engaged in a culture of resistance for as long as there have been bosses. Across every movement and in every language, we have joined our voices together in rebellion and solidarity, singing songs that still echo through the history of organized labor. But in the last hundred years, new technology has allowed these militant rhythms and rebellious melodies to be recorded as they were sung–the voices of miners in Northern England, fieldworkers in California, autoworkers in France, and many others–etched into wax, shellac, and vinyl as strike records.

Poster featuring images of records from Strike While The Needle Is Hot by Josh MacPhee and Kennedy Block.

Josh MacPhee

Mace & Grenades is a 60-minute cassette collecting 21 songs, mixed from vinyl records by me (Josh MacPhee) and edited to tape by Jim McHugh at The P.I.T. in Los Sures, Brooklyn. The songs trace a loose path through a broad conception of antifascist movements, from Indigenous America and Aboriginal Australia to anti-Nazi tracks, songs from the fight against Pinochet in Chile to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa. All tracks are from records I've been collecting over the past decade, with recordings from Angola, Australia, Canada, Chile, France, Italy, Lebanon, Northern Ireland, Norway, Philippines, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and the US. The oversized j-card is 2-color printed, contains a complete track list, as well as a short written piece on anti-fascism and music.

This cassette is an edition of 250. It is Pound the Pavement #37/P.I.T. Tapes #2.

This mixtape is now a benefit for the Prairieland Defendants. A $500 initial donation has already been given.