Chant Records was started in late 2017 by musicians Jon Madof and Shanir Blumenkranz. Their goal was to help people from their community work together, and release music. “It occurred to me that we should make a web,” Madof told me earlier this year. “Whatever reach we have as individuals, that had to be pooled together. Anytime one of us puts out an album, all the fans of the other bands should know about it, too. It should all be out there, in one place, no matter how small it is.”
Chant Records sits on the edges, and isn’t genre-specific. The music isn’t necessarily avant-garde or abrasive, but it also isn’t vanilla or staid. “Our tag line is, ‘adventurous music across the spectrum,'” Madof said in that same interview. “Whatever the genre is, we’re the outer reaches. We’re the experimental wing of whatever genre. But that doesn’t always mean that it sounds experimental.”
In the roundup below, I highlight five Chant Records releases that defy convention, but that also, somewhat, have something to do with Jewish music.
Ben Holmes: Naked Lore
Brooklyn-based trumpeter, Ben Holmes’ third release as a leader, Naked Lore, is an acoustic mashup of klezmer-ish melodies and Balkan grooves. In addition to Holmes, whose virtuosic playing you can hear with artists like Gogol Bordello, Slavic Soul Party!, and Vampire Weekend, the album also features guitarist Brad Shepik (Paul Motian, Charlie Haden, Carla Bley), and percussionist Shane Shanahan (Yo-Yo Ma, Bobby McFerrin, Philip Glass).
Naked Lore features tight arrangements, interesting rhythmic juxtapositions, and thoughtful improvisations. Holmes, in addition to this project, has a collection of Freygish Etudes, which, according to his website, has a somewhat subversive subtext. “I loved the idea of being a guy who is often perceived as non-Jewish (but is!) exploring a sound that is often identified strongly as Jewish (but isn’t!)!”
Midwood: Out of the Narrows
Midwood is a project of violinist, Jake Shulman-Ment, and combines punk energy and distorted guitars with more traditional drums and violin. The project was inspired by Shulman-Ment’s desire to spread his wings, and do something less genre-constraining as klezmer, but as interpreted through his personal filter and experiences, which is ultimately very klezmer-informed. Out of the Narrows also includes drummer Richie Barshay (Herbie Hancock, Esperanza Spalding), guitarist Yoshie Fruchter, and vocalist/multi-instrumentalist Eléonore Weill.
Sandcatchers: What We Found Along The Way
Sandcatchers, a project led by guitarist and oud player, Yoshi Fruchter, is a synthesis of Middle Eastern feels and tunings, with something that could be lurking in Daniel Lanois’ backyard. The music on What We Found Along The Way is spacious, open, and acoustic, yet, like on the track, “Flees Fast Singing,” will hit you—as if out of nowhere—with subtle raunch, and a tinge of distortion. The album is also a showcase for Fruchter’s prodigious oud chops, like the opening to the track, “Watch the Wings Slow.”
What We Found Along The Way also features Myk Freedman on lap steel, upright bassist, Michael Bates, drummer Tim Keiper, and cellist Erik Friedlander.
Koby Israelite: The Rest of Now
Koby Israelite is a London-based multi-instrumentalist, who slays on accordion (and drums, and guitar, and Roli Seaboard, and a bunch of other things, too). “He plays everything,” Madof says. “And his music has the Balkan, Eastern European, Jewish thing”—which is an apt description.
Right out of the gate, The Rest of Now, is a display of Israelite’s accordion prowess, with intricate lines, and nimble fingers, and that energy continues throughout the album. He’ll also take it a little outside, like on tracks, “Why Did I Kill Aleksandra Andrejewna,” the spaghetti-westerns-meets-odd-meters on “Booy Booy Booy,” or the tight unison lines with with violinist, Monika Koscielna on, “Kurczak.”
Zion80: Pardes
Madof’s band, Zion80, which also features Chant Records co-founder Shanir Blumenkranz on bass, is what happens when you combine the Afrobeat rhythms of Fela Kuti with the cantorial melodies of Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach. “As figures, as I started to think about Carlebach and Fela, I saw them in a very similar light,” Madof told me recently. “They both have this aspect of particularism and universalism. They are both artists who certainly transcended where they came from, or their particulars. But with both of them, you can see that the particular and universal are not opposites. They are two sides of the same coin. By embracing who they are, their culture, and where they came from—in their particular idiosyncratic ways—they were able to communicate in a universal way.”