Like rabbit tracks going through the backyard, Geoff Berner’s intellectual path is both mysterious and twinkling. I would call him the perfect Canadian musician in that he spices so much of the soup with history while simultaneously delivering a heck of a tasty bowl.
Berner has intentionally gone more Klezmer-ish here, trying to reclaim radical Jewish culture, as he puts it, that’s “the opposite of the conservative, knee-jerk pro-Israel, judgmental bullshit that’s emerged in recent decades.”
It’s a big goal, but man this album fucking kicks. Where to begin? The traditional slave song “Mayn Rue Platz” Berner keeps as a lament for the sweatshop worker, he just cleverly moves the location to China, where we get our goods with the same, blindered non-consideration we give the cow-processing factory. He recruits singer/erhu player Lan Tung for one of the most beautiful things I’ve heard in ages.
Another cover, Sluttarded’s “I Am Going to Jail”, gets lathered with a Hungarian Chadisic wedding beat and is a perfect song for our poor-neglecting times. Need a warm roof? Shoes? Get arrested! Which Berner just might do if “Daloy Polizei” gets as much play as it should. The beat is amazing, the lyrics even moreso, which I’ll quote at length: “There must be something magic down in the holding cells. Cause there’s stuff that happens that just don’t happen anywhere else. Healthy people dying from a sudden heart attack. Men who hang themselves with their hands tied behind their back. There’s lots of good and brave police, it must be true, I guess — It’s brave to work with a murderer sipping coffee by your desk.”
Fuck yeah. “Laughing Jackie the Pimp” is yet another example, a tale of what happened to the Jews when the Russians came to town. I don’t want to trivialize that violence, but Berner handles it with so much fun I can already see Steven Spielberg crossing his arms. As interesting as an Antony Beevor trip through wartime Stalingrad, Berner’s captures as much character as any musical storyteller out there.
Pulling in Socalled’s hip hop klezmer chops was just the right move to make occasional dance energy — found on the song about a golem — blend without seam. Hypnotic, full of spinning repetition, any of Berner’s albums is worth getting. Why not make it this one, turkey tits?
02/10/11
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