JDub Records

I’ve been talking a lot about Mali’s Festival Au Desert, which The Sway Machinery just performed at.  For some reason, I’m just totally captivated by the idea of a music festival right in the middle of the desert sand dunes.  When I found BBC World Service’ gallery of photos from the festival, I knew I had to share some of them here:

Afropop.org has a great article recounting the recent Festival Au Desert, including some great insights on The Sway Machinery and what seems like their multiple collaborations with Malian musicians.  You can check that out HERE.

“In the early evening in one of the tents a remarkable collaboration occurred as the American group, Sway Machinery, had a jam session with the Malian band from the city of Gao, Super Khoumeissa. At the outset, their music couldn’t be more different but as they played together a wonderful melding occurred. Super Khoumeissa has a unique sound that immediately hooked both Animal Collective and the Sway Machinery. As Jeremiah Lockwood, the leader of Sway Machinery put it, their sound is a “unique interaction with amplification technology that spins traditional music and repositions it into the realm of hardcore electronica.” The horns of Sway Machinery lent a chromatic depth to Khoumeissa’s already reverberating buzz, and Lockwood’s guitar playing melded perfectly into the mix. The groups made an arrangement to record together in Bamako a few days after the Festival ended so we’ll have to wait to hear what comes out of this meeting in the sands.“

Well, we’re back from vacation, and it’s time to catch you all up on what you might have missed over the break.  Here ya’ go:

• The Faster Times included The Sway Machinery and Girls in Trouble in their Best of 2009 Music list.

• The Boston Survival Guide chose Girls in Trouble to include in their 2009 Band Roundup.

• Made Up Disease (MUD) posted a really nice and very thorough ode to JDub, including a whole bunch of our artists, like The Macaroons and Balkan Beat Box.

• Music magazine Blurt included Alicia of Girls in Trouble in their The Artists Have Spoken: Best of 2009 feature.

• JTA’s The Fundermentalist shed a little light on the recent Jdub/Nextbook partnership.

• The Forward listed Soulico and The Sway Machinery as picks on their 2009 Forward Fives list.

• The University of Oregon’s Oregon Voice had a great writeup on Soulico’s Exotic on the Speaker.

• DJ Anjali listed Soulico’s Exotic on the Speaker as part of his Top 5 of 2009 in the Portland Mercury.

• Digital City has a fantastic interview with Dave Schneider of The Macaroons — conducted by Corn Mo’!

• The Sway Machinery is one of LimeWire’s Best of 2009 Staff Picks!

• Jeremiah Lockwood, of The Sway Machinery, published an op-ed in The Forward about the band’s trip to Mali.

• Contrarian Media picked Golem’s Fresh Off Boat as a Best of the Waughts disc.

• Our friends over at Tablet Mag talk up The Macaroons in a podcast dedicated to the best family-friendly music of 2009.

• New York Times‘ Urban Eye listed Jewltide as one of their Christmas Eve picks.

Last but not least, I’ve posted more photos from Jewltide 7 under the cut!  All credit goes to Dan Sieradski.

Hey there everyone out in the world.  Happy new year!

The Sway Machinery is leaving this weekend for Mali to perform at the Festival of the Desert and to record our new album.  It’s the most exciting project we have embarked on so far and we are truly grateful to begin the new year on such a positive and hopeful note!

This week we’ve been included in a few best of 2009 round-ups–HERE you can check out a clip from our WNYC performance last spring, currently featured in a broadcast of Soundcheck’s Best Live Performances of the year.  Thanks, John Schaefer!!

Yesterday, JDub, The Sway Machinery and Girls in Trouble all got some great mentions in The New York Times’ T Magazine blog.  You can check that entire article, “Not Your Bubby’s Hanukkah Music”, out HERE.  Full text is also included after the jump.

“Alicia Jo Rabins’s tender version of the “other” dreidel song “Sivivon Sov Sov Sov” should be a Hanukkah standard. Her plucked violin and gorgeous voice could be a Jewish “Silent Night.” “The great thing is that even Hanukkah songs are in minor keys,” says Rabins, “which makes it easy to cover them with a creepy twist.” Rabins also plays in the great klezmer punk band Golem and has her own project, Girls in Trouble, which chronicles women in the Old Testament.”

Hanukkah, the ancient festival of lights, is upon us. The holiday is synonymous with many things, including sublime greasy food (latkes and jelly doughnuts) and long-suffering parents trying to explain to their children why the gift largess pales in comparison to Christmas — despite the holiday’s eight-night span. Musically, Hanukkah is best known for the Dreidel Song (“Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel / I made it of clay”) and Adam Sandler’s spoken-word opus (recently covered by Neil Diamond). This year Senator Orrin Hatch, Republican of Utah, tried to enter the pantheon with a “gift” to the Jewish people. Like all good presents, it’s one we never knew we wanted.

Far from the Beltway, though, a new Jewish music scene has been steadily building in New York City. “Hanukkah music had no effect on me,” says the musician Matisyahu, who grew up in a reconstructionist synagogue before becoming Orthodox and moving to Crown Heights, Brooklyn. The spiritual singer, currently playing an eight-night stint at Webster Hall and the Music Hall of Williamsburg, combines Jamaican dancehall with Jewish religious philosophy on his new album, “Light” (Epic). “Despite the disco ball dreidel,” he says, referring to the show’s lighting prop, “music is not about a party for me, it’s about trying to communicate ideas.”

Alicia Jo Rabins’s tender version of the “other” dreidel song “Sivivon Sov Sov Sov” should be a Hanukkah standard. Her plucked violin and gorgeous voice could be a Jewish “Silent Night.” “The great thing is that even Hanukkah songs are in minor keys,” says Rabins, “which makes it easy to cover them with a creepy twist.” Rabins also plays in the great klezmer punk band Golem and has her own project, Girls in Trouble, which chronicles women in the Old Testament.

Rabins records for the New York-based label JDub, whose roster includes Sway Machinery, a band that played a Hanukkah show Saturday night at the Sixth Street Community Synagogue. The group, with its ferocious five-piece horn section, tore the roof off the sanctuary (metaphorically) and blew the sound system (literally). Led by the guitarist Jeremiah Lockwood, the band combines ancient Jewish cantorial singing traditions with blistering rock and jazz. The lineup reads like indie rock royalty, with the drummer Brian Chase of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Colin Stetson of Arcade Fire and Tom Waits’s band, and Jordan McLean and Stuart Bogie of Antibalas.

Finally, Gods of Fire is the answer to the oft-asked question “Where do I find some Hanukkah-themed heavy metal?” It’s hard to imagine any of the band’s serrating anthems becoming holiday standards anytime soon — or anytime, for that matter — but if nothing else it’s one less time you have to hear about a dreidel made of clay.

A good place to learn about New York City’s new Jewish music scene are the music labels J-Dub Records, Shemspeed and Tzadik (John Zorn’s label). This week the Shemspeed label is producing its fifth annual Sephardic Music Festival at venues around the city including the new 92nd Street Y in Tribeca, Joe’s Pub, and the Knitting Factory, featuring artists like Galeet Dardashti, Pharaoh’s Daughter and Matisyahu.