Various

"Everything has changed, and it is changing still. The early days of 2025 (an already baleful year, vis-a-vis America’s darkening political horizon) have wrought heretofore unimaginable destruction in the land we now call Los Angeles. The wildfires that began on the morning of Tuesday, January 7th—and which are still raging—are, in scope and intensity, unlike any other disaster, natural or manmade, in the city’s living memory. Thousands of homes destroyed. Twenty four lives lost at the time of writing (that number will almost certainly rise), and innumerable lives forever altered. The devastation arrived suddenly, and has persisted over the course of a punishing and surreal week. 

We rise in the morning after not sleeping. We check the air quality. We check the fires’ progress on the same app we’ve all installed (the City’s alert system keeps misfiring). We add another photo to the go bag. We wonder what the fuck the phrase “8% containment actually means,” or what distinguishes “ready” from “set” when the evacuation warnings are fired off within mere minutes of one another. And what happens when warnings turn to orders. We evacuate. If we have time, we walk through our homes, recording each room, narrating all our possessions, for “insurance purposes.” If we don’t have time we just go. We arrive somewhere…safe…safer? We exhale. Another alert. We evacuate again. Hadn’t even unzipped the go bag.  We text. We call. They’re not answering. They’re probably fine but why aren’t they answering. Probably the same reason you’re not answering. There’s no time and you can’t think. Your phone is exploding. Relatives and friends are watching the news. “How close are you?” You are too close. You are close even if you’re not close because the fires keep starting.” Kenneth.” “Sunset.” The winds keep shifting. The cars are all parked in the road and all the keys are gone. It is like a nightmare. You can’t get away. It is here and it is everywhere. And for all too many this agonizing cycle keeps on repeating after the unthinkable has already occurred: The loss of home. 

The unfoldingness of this event is hard to articulate. Having experienced unprecedented rainfall the previous winter, and unprecedentedly dry conditions in the months since, the region is, at present, uniquely vulnerable to catastrophic fires. The Eaton and Palisades Fires, already estimated to be the two most destructive fires in the City’s history, are slowly being contained, but the Santa Ana winds are expected to return. With them, more fear and uncertainty. We pray for rain in a desperate and ancient way.  

Everyone is exhausted, enraged (the usual suspects are at best shrugging and at worst sewing division; the profiteers are already salivating), to varying degrees stunned by loss and sick with grief, and still, somehow, mustering the courage and energy to act collectively, to contribute, however they might, towards the preservation of life. We are stuck between (propelled by?) devastation and action. The impulse to simply break down, and the knowledge that there is tremendous work to be done, now and in the future. To preserve what remains, and to regain what we’ve lost. 

The individuals and communities affected in this moment are numerous and varied, but it is the case that Los Angeles’s musical community has been absolutely upended. The Palisades fire, with its reach into older parts of Malibu and Topanga Canyon, and the Eaton fire, in its virtual erasure of Altadena, have affected some of the only areas in Los Angeles where working musicians could live with a modicum of comfort—Though, as we are all too aware in this moment, precarity has always been part of the bargain here.

A brief word on Altadena in particular: In recent years, Altadena has become a rich and vibrant hub for artists of all kinds. Nestled below the San Gabriel mountains, the region’s demography shifted in the latter half of the twentieth century—due in large part to a history of redlining, that practice’s legal cessation, and subsequent white flight—to become a thriving Black enclave within Los Angeles. Former residents include no less than Octavia Butler (whose Parable of the Sower rings now as terribly prophetic) and Sydney Poitier. That Altadena has remained one of the few areas within Los Angeles where home ownership is feasible for working families and artists of all stripes is no coincidence. Countless generational homes and historic Black-owned businesses have been destroyed. Among the diverse institutions confirmed to have been lost at the time of writing are Madlib’s estate, the Theosophical Society’s archives, and the altar of kitsch and wholesomeness that was The Bunny Museum. 

Leaving Records in particular has deep roots in Altadena. Label founder Matthew David cut his teeth printing J cards at a home operation in the neighborhood, and countless Leaving artists reside in the area. Many of these artists have either definitively lost their homes, or are currently waiting to learn their fate. The path to rebuilding (how long it will take, what it will cost, whether it is even feasible) remains terribly unclear. 

But, in the spirit of doing what we can, and doing what we do best, Leaving has pulled out all the proverbial stops to release a benefit compilation consisting of affiliated artists and supporters far and wide (many of whom have indeed lost everything). Seeking to supplement the numerous GoFundMes and the profound, often harrowing acts of mutual aid that are currently buoying recovery efforts, and in lieu of donating to a third party organization, all proceeds will be donated directly to impacted individuals. 50% will be meticulously,  manually allocated to Los Angeles artists and music colleagues in need, as equitably as possible. We will be referencing existing music community aid spreadsheets / documents already circulating, alongside a succinct internal list of those affected in our immediate community. The other 50% of funds will be allocated to displaced Black families and community impacted by the fires, again, as equitably as possible.

Personal and collective healing, ecological recuperation, spiritual transcendence, radical communality — these concerns are woven into Leaving’s roster and catalog. Never in the label’s history has it been so called upon to celebrate and implement these principles. Though we may not even know what “hope” constitutes yet, we know we’ve got it somewhere. We know it’s in solidarity, and we know it’s in the music." - Emmett Shoemaker