Together We Stand

It's been ten years since Abraham Inc's first album Tweet Tweet and, given the impact it still has now, any excitement over this next one is understandable. Abraham Inc is a collaboration between leading klezmer clarinettist David Krakauer, prolific rapper and accordionist Socalled, and the grandmaster of funk trombone, Fred Wesley. Complemented by both horn and rhythm sections, the result is a mash-up of the Maxwell Street Klezmer Band, Youngblood Brass Band and James Brown, with occasional electric beats and more rapping!

The title, and tracks such as ‘Lullaby for Charlottesville’, carry a strong message of diversity within unit: appropriate for such a grouping in times like these. The album more than conveys this through music and is way more than the sum of its triplicate parts. Sometimes you get a hint of Ethio-jazz – it may be intentional or perhaps just the result of mixing Eastern modes with funk, but it works so well. On a particularly tasty version of Ellington's ‘Blue Pepper’, jazz meets rock meets the shtetl. It's almost like watching some radical new musical but with so many plot twists you wonder what they're going to do next.