Disruptions by The Dream Riots

This improvised, experimental project is a sonic outrage in response to the injustice happening in the world. Zooming in on the genocide in Palestine, it also speaks to other horrors that we witness, both in South Africa and in the rest of the world. These two takes feature poems written by poet Ari Sitas, with guitar by Reza Khota and vinyl record samples overlaid by Atiyyah Khan.

Any sales will be donated to Gift of the Givers - a South African-based organisation who specialise in aid and relief funding for Palestine and other regions across the world.

The poems featured are:

Inside our Wonderkid
A Normal Day on this AfroAsian Sea with my Tuba
Run
Lie Flat
Singing
The Walking Song
Anthropology I
The Quietest Night
Let me Lie to You

We launch this sonic offering on 7 October 2025, marking two years since the beginning of the genocide in Palestine. Today also launches Ari Sitas' poetry anthology featuring these poems, called 'Surplus Values' which digs deeper into the atrocity we have become. Are there ways so that words can express the wanton violence and killing, even the current genocide, without losing hope? It will be available via www.chimurengachronic.co.za.

The artwork is '60th' by Palestinian artist Nidal Elkhairy - via the Free Palestine Project: https://freepalestineproject.com/.
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Let me lie to you, by Ari Sitas

Let me...please
Let me lie to you:
Your mother has gone to shops far away
And the buses are broken
The firecrackers you hear are for Eid, my child
And the hole in my heart is to let the spring flowers in

Let me...please
Let me lie to you: 
The clouds are only dark because heavy with rain
Our hopes are asleep but will wake again
The firecrackers you hear are for Eid, my child, 
And the hole in my heart is to let the spring flowers in....
And the dark clouds, my child, they cover us like a shawl
They are to shield us from the saffron sun, that is all
But mother has gone...See those blood-red coats?
They’re smeared in marigold colours of Holi, that is all
The firecrackers you hear are for Eid, my child,
And the hole in my heart is to let the spring flowers in..

The flashes of lightning that light up the rubble
Of our homes are to remind us we're alive, we survive
And the tear in the sky that you see, my child
Is to give us a glimpse of another Time.
Is to give us the glimpse of another Time.

A collective of poetry, records and guitar featuring Ari Sitas (poems and vocals), Reza Khota (guitar) and Atiyyah Khan (DJ and samples, records)