We named Washington, DC punks Ekko Astral a Band To Watch a few months back, and their delightfully noisy debut album Pink Balloons is already one of our favorites of the year. They’re back today with a topically relevant standalone single called “Holocaust Remembrance Day.”

“Holocaust Remembrance Day” is a lot more pared-down than what we’ve typically heard so far from Ekko Astral, and that more minimal sonic approach makes vocalist Jael Holzman’s words feel all the more powerful. Over an acoustic guitar, she sings about a few incidents she’s gone through living as a Jewish person in the US, before her bandmates join her for some group vocals in the end: “Truth lies in between/ You and me and the country.” Holzman explains further in a press release:

This song reflects three experiences key to my life as an American Jew. The first verse is about a time I was asked by a police officer in the U.S. Capitol building if I was a Muslim because of my tichel. The third verse is about when Liam and I produced a podcast for our university’s Hillel about how Jewish students felt about Israel but were censored and disallowed from having any critical voices. And the cover is the site of a 1994 massacre of Palestinians during Ramadan at a holy site to both Jews and Muslims, the Cave of the Patriarchs. I visited this site during a monthlong trip to Israel in high school with a Jewish youth group. That trip also included military humvees, attempts at recruiting me and my fellow high school-aged Jews to the IDF, and lectures about how the Dome of the Rock was a reason to hold hate in our hearts for Arab Muslim people.

Criticizing the Israeli state for the violence it perpetrates against the Palestinian people is not antisemetic. I say that as someone whose family has stayed in kibbutzim just like those targeted on Oct. 7. The truth is there is more than one kind of Jew, and questioning what people tell you is a central Jewish moral. But the city I live in, Washington DC, definitely doesn’t talk about it that way very often. I’ve been struck by the hypocrisy of some news outlets talking about detained reporters in Russia, but there has been no bleeding heart for all the journalists being carried out on stretchers dead in Gaza. Where was the Dana Bash CNN segment about the Al-Jazeera reporter who was shot dead by the IDF multiple years ago? We don’t see that anywhere.

Ekko Astral are sharing “Holocaust Remembrance Day” exclusively through Bandcamp, and putting all proceeds towards GoFundMes for families in crisis seeking refuge from the Israeli military. Plus, they’re going on tour this summer, and you can see those dates below.

TOUR DATES:
8/12 – Pittsburgh, PA @ Club Cafe
8/13 – Columbus, OH @ Ace Of Cups
8/14 – Indianapolis, IN @ Healer
8/15 – Chicago, IL @ Gman Tavern
8/17 – Detroit, MI @ Sanctuary Detroit
8/18 – Cleveland, OH @ Foundry