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"The noted Israeli singer-songwriter has fashioned a suite of wry modern tales, related via literate yet colloquial Hebrew lyrics and easy-going folk-rock arrangements. Her rich, chesty alto sings of people who are trying to belong or just passing through. A poorly-paid Romanian immigrant must suddenly deal with unfamiliar Jewish funeral rites. A single worshipper waits in vain near a synagogue. Noisy post-holiday crowds return to mundane concerns, crowding the streets as they head back to their cars. Drunkards carouse amid the Sabbath hush, racism appears in insidious guises, a couple exists in polite estrangement, and tourists wander about with video cameras, seeing nothing. In a New York coffee house without reading glasses, Alberstein squints at a neighboring patron's newspaper, trying to figure out why Federico Fellini is front page news. Daily life consists of minute indignities and triumphs. Alberstein enlightens us about this process with humor, sympathy and tact."
"On her 54th recording (and only her third issued in the United Sates), Israeli chanteuse Chava Alberstein moves into some new terrain. Celebrated for her classics Foreign Letters and Well, a collaboration with the Klezmatics, Alberstein and her poet/lyricist husband, Navad Levitan, have crafted a wondrously melancholy series of songs and tone poems about modern life in Israel from a variety of viewpoints and capturing a startling array of situations. Musically, Ms. Alberstein is somewhere between the great folk music traditions of her homeland, modern day pop, the folk-rock heritage she literally created in Israel using Yiddish, primarily, and the depth of soul of Leonard Cohen and Joni Mitchell. As a singer, Ms. Alberstein is dramatic and taut, though far from cinematic. She prefers to allow the lyrics of a song to permeate her delivery as she works in concert with her accompaniment; she never places herself above it or tries to communicate with vocal pyrotechnics. The most notable tracks here are the title track, with its sad imagery of people departing the beaches after Rosh Hoshanah and the hookers looking on at the departing throng. Musically, the languid, slow dirge-like tempo buoys the deep ache in the singer's voice. There is also the gorgeous and wrenching immigrant's song, "Vera From Bucharest," set to a folk melody, the acoustic guitar darkness of "'Shadow," whose poetry is as stark as the darkness and is punctuated by a lone electric guitar piercing the space with fills around her mournful voice. Ultimately though, using a variety of styles and settings, Ms. Alberstein offers a view of Tel Aviv and its everyday life that is never seen by outsiders: it is a city of ghosts and grinning shadows to be sure, but also of flesh and blood that aches, weeps, and goes about the business of making sense of the changing nature of the times. This is a brilliant, provocative recording that fans of alternative pop - rock will flip for."
01. End Of The Holiday
02. Real Estate
03. Vera From Bucharest
04. Black Video
05. Shadow
06. Psalms
07. Empty Synagogue
08. Boiling Water
09. Friday Night
10. Dying Creek
11. Fellini In New York
Chava Alberstein (vocals, acoustic guitar, classical guitar)
Ovad Efrat (acoustic guitar, bass)
Berry Sakharof (guitar, background vocals)
Amos Hadani (guitar)
Sheffi Yishay (accordion)
Eyal Sela (winds)
Yaron Bachar (Synthesizer)
Avi Agababa (drums, percussion)
Link
pass: bluesmen-worldmusic.blogspot.com
