Everything Returns

Black Ox Orkestar are primarily concerned with Jewish Eastern European music but also the wider Jewish experience, bringing aspects of Slavic, Arabic and Central Asian culture into what it terms ‘diaspora music.’ On a practical level, this means things such as the fusion of the improvisatory styles of Jewish nusakh and Arab taqsim, but also sounds from non-Jewish sources, such as jazz and rock.

The instruments here are pretty standard for the genre – comprising bass, piano, clarinet, violin and various other stringed instruments (such as cimbalom) and, while some of the sounds they make with them are quite trad, the innovative compositions, arrangements and subtle use of effects open up new soundscapes in Jewish music. Nineteenth-century shtetl repertoire mingles with original compositions and Yiddish song and, at times, we get hints of alt-rock ballad, with ‘Viderkol (Echo)’ and ‘Lamed-Vovnik’. The meticulous attention to detail is apparent throughout, not least in the cleverly coded metaphor in ‘Epigenetik’ which refers to the transmigration of souls in Jewish mysticism. Definitely one of the most successful re-inventions of Jewish music that I’ve heard.