Today, Bandcamp Is Donating Its Profits to the Transgender Law Center. Here’s What You Should Buy.

Today, Bandcamp Is Donating Its Profits to the Transgender Law Center. Here’s What You Should Buy.
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Today, Bandcamp is donating their share of each purchase made on the music site to the Transgender Law Center. The announcement follows a series of tweets made by Donald Trump last week outlining his plan to “ban” transgender individuals from serving in the military, as well as his recent nomination of Sam Brownback—a vocal opponent of gay rights as the governor of Kansas—to serve as an ambassador for religious freedom internationally.

In February, Bandcamp responded to Trump’s “travel ban” with an open letter from their founder and CEO, which announced that all proceeds of the day would be donated to the ACLU to help cover the legal defense fees of the many immigrant populations effected by the ban. The fundraiser was a resounding success, raising over a million dollars in total music sales, 12% of which went directly from Bandcamp to the ACLU, with the other 88% going directly to labels and artists, many of whom also pledged their profits to various causes as well.

Today, over 200 independent artists and labels pledging their support by donating their own contributions. In the spirit of their philanthropy, here are a few of our favorite releases from the site in recent months.

Palehound – A Place I’ll Always Go

As Palehound, Ellen Kempner turns decades of grief into an outpouring of cathartic release. Channeling the death of a close friend into tangled lines that hit hard in their final moments, songs like “Carnations” and “If You Met Her” strike anyone who’s ever been caught in the bind between moving on and forgetting. On this year’s Polyvinyl debut A Place I’ll Always Go, Kempner is joined by stunning production, finally turning small confessions into something huge.

Aye Nako – Silver Haze

As a four-piece, Aye Nako have always made compelling punk that’s as ragged and ruthless as it is emotionally complex. From its dense arrangements to its sloppy, sappy center, Silver Haze collapses a whirlwind of feeling into 12 imagistic composites of outrage, frustration, and self-doubt, melded together in a thick mess of gorgeous melodic catharsis. Cuts like “Half Dome” and “Particle Mace” split the difference between racing tempos of Daydream Nation-era Sonic Youth and the strident tunings of Sleater-Kinney classics.

serpentwithfeet – blisters EP

The operatic pop of songwriter/vocalist serpentwithfeet is a breathtaking thing to behold, despite being difficult to describe. Collaborating with Björk producer Haxan Cloak and touring with Perfume Genius throughout this year,…