Thanks for taking the time to visit our JustGiving page.

We are donating the proceeds of our new single, Silence, to charity.  Here's Taz's explanation of why:

In 2014 I reached a point where I couldn't bear to watch the news any more. Everything in it was so sad, so far away from the world I thought would exist by the time I was an adult, so full of injustice, war and death of innocent people. Simultaneously my frustration with the use of social media peaked, and I deleted the majority of my accounts (some I need for work, otherwise they'd have gone too!) More than anything I couldn't reconcile my frustration with events around the world with the fact that when I posted about them online, more people would talk about a picture of a sandwich than about the news events of the day. Granted a few like-minded folk would always engage in conversation about the state of the world but there were still 95% of people for whom it seemed that silence was the acceptable option. I was endlessly frustrated. The world is never going to change if those of us who are lucky enough to observe it from a safe place stay silent. But I still had a distinct feeling that just ranting on social media was shouting into the wind.

Around the same time I was listening to a radio interview with a musician, and in all honesty now I'd struggle to tell you who it was. What I do know is that it was someone whose music I wasn't that familiar with, but he was telling the story about how a song he wrote was about a social situation he had observed at the time. Previously ignorant to the story of the song, I listened to his song with new ears. I pondered on why people don't write protest songs any more. They do of course, and many of the musicians I admire the most write amazing songs about the injustices they see. And then I realised that maybe we had more of a voice than sharing distressing stories online. Maybe silence won't change the world, but singing about it could.

Of course, we aren't kidding ourselves. We aren't a platinum selling band with legions of fans who will buy the single and thus give us a huge sum of money we can donate to a cause. But each of us are dedicated to what we believe in. And that, we think, is the same for most people. So here's the deal. You can watch the video for Silence here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0ovhi7wJuo . You can download Silence, and the 2 B-sides, Walk the Other Way and Was She? on Bandcamp here: https://ultraxine.bandcamp.com/releases. You can pay (donate) what you want for the single. Everything that we receive for the single will be donated to charity, via our Justgiving page, which you have just found!

If you prefer you can download the single for free and donate an amount directly to our fundraising page instead. It's entirely your call. But hey, we also know that not everyone has spare cash flying around, or has their own charities they would prefer to support. If you'd prefer to download the single for free, and donate your next spare £2 to the charity of your choice, then please, do that on us. Or if it's a tight month - and trust us, we get that - download the single free, and pay it forward when you can. Do something kind for an elderly neighbour. Put a tin in the foodbank collection at the supermarket. Pick up a piece of litter in the street. Stand up for what YOU believe in. Change the world in any tiny way that you can, because you can.

If you'd rather do the 'usual' thing and purchase the single via a mainstream provider so it syncs with the rest of your collection, we understand that too - so it's available from the usual purchase and streaming outlets too.

Peace, love, and absolutely not silence...