Remember Pakistan, anyone?

Over three months ago, heavy monsoon rains flooded the areas around the Indus River in the southwestern tip of Pakistan, leaving over 2,000 people and 1,000 livestock dead and over 20 million people homeless in the regions of Sindh, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkwa and Balochistan.

By the end of July, relief efforts from Pakistan, the U.S. and the United Nations began trickling to those in need and by the end of August, an entire month later, worldwide donations were being made to assist those whose livelihoods were washed away in the floods. Despite the millions of dollars coming in from all over the world, the situation in the affected areas is still bleak. 

Because of the scarcity of resources, food prices are skyrocketing and becoming even more unaffordable. Because of the knee-high water that entered houses and facilities, water-born illnesses are also on the rise, including malaria, skin diseases, gastroenteritis and diarrhea (the latter two of which are symptoms of cholera). Not only has the Pakistani infrastructure been damaged to the point of crumbled wreckage as a result of delayed support from Pakistan’s own government as well as those of other nations, Pakistani people have rioted and blocked the streets in frustration. 

“The lack of coverage in the American media is shameful,” said Ilyas Ahmed, the Pakistan-born musician who organized Wednesday night’s benefit show at Holocene. “I have a huge family there and their well-being is always on my mind.”

Tomorrow night, Holocene will be hosting a show whose proceeds will go to the Edhi Foundation—a family-run foundation based in Karachi, Pakistan, that is fervently dedicated to welfare work. The foundation began with one man and an old van he renovated into an ambulance. He called it the “poor man’s van” and focused on providing medical services to the poor and burying unclaimed bodies. His reputation gained notoriety and people began donating money. Soon enough he had nurses and staff, and with the available funding, he eventually opened up diabetic centers, surgical units, eye hospitals, mobile dispensaries and eight other hospitals that provide free health care. In addition, according to its website, the Edhi Foundation refuses to take any aid from the Pakistani government, thereby maintaining its independence.

In donating your money to this particular foundation, you can be assured it is going straight to those in need.

Along with experimental folk artist Ahmed, artists Dragging an Ox Through Water, Golden Retriever, Whip, DJ Yeti and DJ Swami Davis, Jr. will be playing the show. Ahmed will be the pinnacle of the evening, whose style utilizes extremely tasteful elements of cultural duplicity while being embedded within a framework of dark, drone-y folk and reverb. 

Dragging an Ox Through Water is Brain Mumford’s one-man show whose music, he said, “tends to run in territories which involve fragments of folk, country and pop music with a lot of unpredictable visceral noise and drone elements.” Mumford’s voice has that same sort of biting edge found in the similarly lonesome project Xiu Xiu. 

Golden Retriever is a brilliant mosaic of nature and machine, mostly using analogue synthesizers and bass clarinet. Their sound is open and full, simultaneously bursting with elements of electro-pop and psychedelic noise jams. Composed of Matt Carlson on synths and Jonathan Sielaff on clarinet, the duo sounds nothing like the dog they name themselves after, but rather like a serpent or a bumble bee. 

So, if you aren’t busy tomorrow night and have five bucks to spare, head down to Holocene to support the mending of a crisis, however foreign the soil may be. ?