Die khasene and Forn forstu are about the 19 th-century Jewish experience of warfare, political songs of their own time that lament a forced conscription into the Czar’s army. Toyte goyes, a song-setting of a poem by Itzik Feffer, describes a Ukraine devastated by war and famine.
The Yiddish language sung on Ver tanzt? is from a rough time, full of despair and devastation, and this brutal speech somehow seems appropriate in another time of war. The album’s music also subverts the clichŽs of the klezmer revival, using mostly traditional instruments to create an invented 21 st-century folk music that marries spectral Jewish melodies, free jazz, and a punk ethos. Ver tanzt? is not a record made for dancing we draw on the darker and more complex side of the repertoire but as we play this old and new music, blending archival material with our own experimentation, some ancient ghosts are certainly dancing around our heads.

MUSICIANS
Thierry Amar – contrabass
Scott Levine Gilmore – vocals,mandolin,violin,guitar,cymbalom,percussion
Gabe Levine – clarinet, guitar
Jessica Moss – violin