Mordechai Shinefield
By Mordechai Shinefield
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News Death Metal for a ‘Dying Language’
In his 1978 Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Isaac Bashevis Singer said: “Yiddish may be a dying language, but it is the only language I know well. Yiddish is my mother language and a mother is never really dead.” Ans so what better musical expression for an ever-dying language than death metal? Enter Gevolt, a six-member…
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News A ‘-palooza’ for the Rest of Us
What can you say about a Jewish music festival that rounds up nine eclectic musical acts, puts them on the same 9-hour bill and then holds the festival the Sunday before Rosh Hashanah? Ambitious, to say the least. When you attract over a thousand people to a festival that combines the Do-It-Yourself aesthetic of the…
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News Shining Light on Celan’s Dark Words
What do you do after pioneering Barbez, a combination Slavic cabaret and Jewish New York punk band? If you’re Dan Kaufman, Barbez’s frontman, you set aside anything pop-oriented or melody-bound and fling yourself over the avant-garde bridge. “Force of Light,” a series of compositions reinterpreting Paul Celan’s poetry, makes no effort to be listener-friendly. Paul…
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Music Northern State’s Rap Against J.A.P.
Young Jeezy may prefer Cristal and Northern State may “enjoy a lemonade spritzer with Eliot Spitzer,” but outside of alcohol choices, stereotypes concerning hip-hop stars and J.A.P.’s are surprisingly similar. That theme is one that concerns Northern State, a trio of female rappers from Long Island (two of whom are Jewish). Instead of dwelling on…
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News Yeshiva of Rock
Four years ago, I received a burned CD copy of an unreleased album. Hastily written on the disc in black marker was the band’s name, The Marcus Brothers. The CD contained an album-worth of explicitly Orthodox rock. It was something of an underground Chabad secret, the group’s core members two real-life brothers, one of them…
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News Oi Va Voi’s Brave New Klezmer
The experimental London ensemble Oi Va Voi opens its self-titled third album with a brave new look into the future of klezmer. On lead single “Yuri,” a distorted, distant voice calls out, “I am a rocket, the power of the system/it’s bullet-proof technology/Oh, we’re going to a new world/Going to a better place.” Clarinet and…
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News Metal Without Borders
Limp Bizkit may be coming out with a new album this year, but nu-metal — a genre of rock that melds hip-hop influences and pop-metal — died in America effective October, 2001 (with the debut of the chart-topping indie band The Strokes). Yet, while the death rattle of nu-metal rings here, Israeli nu-metal is vibrant…
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News Making Ladino New Again
One of the more interesting developments in modern Jewish music is the emergence of a handful of bands that meld raucous New York rock and Putumayo-friendly world music. The Sarah Aroeste Band, a five-member group focused on the Judeo-Spanish music of the Ladino-speaking Diaspora, has become one of the scene’s pillars. The band’s sophomore album,…
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