Possessed [Audio CD] Klezmatics

Klezmatics mix jazz, folk, rock and Jewish music into a unique and powerful new sound. This album is one of the more challeging of their many works, leaping from genre to genre with seeming abandon. A core element of the record is the songwriting of playwright Tony Kushner, a self-described "half-baked, half-former, re-formed, dummermann kind of Jew." His lyrics for "Undoing World" are powerful phrases of love, loss and exile played against a traditional tune. Klezmatics can break into a frenzied dance here or a heart-rending fiddle tune there; the beauty of Possessed is its complete unpredictability. This is klezmer music of a high order. --Louis Gibson