The Friday mixtape is not a mixtape

[I am re-posting this, with some extras, as I got the date wrong and scheduled it in the past…]

This is the third in my Friday mixtape series, which will be where I round up several links to music posts I’ve been reading in the week – although it might not be every week.

Via the lovely Arieh in NYC, here is Hillel Schenker’s new blog in the Times of Israel, starting with a post of musical memories for Israel’s 64th birthday, “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m 64?”

As Hebrew University philosophy professor Meir Buzaglo recently noted, music is “the soul of the nation.”  He believes that without jazz, Barack Obama would not have become president of the United States.  Music is both a messenger and an agent of change says Buzaglo, whose father Rabbi David Buzaglo was a paitan (singer of traditional and sacred poetry) from Morocco. So let’s get into a time machine and take a magical musical mystery tour.

He plays some peace songs, such as “CShir Lashalom” (“Song for Peace”), lyrics by Ya’acov Rotblitt, who lost a leg in 1967 during the Six Day War, and music by Ya’ir Rosenbloom:

Moving on, some great roots reggae for Jah from For the Sake of the Song.

From Cover Lay Down, check out some great Americana coverage here. I really liked  Rani Arbo and daisy mayhem – described as “a family-friendly “agnostic gospel” band” – and their version of the beautiful “East Virginia Blues” and Springsteen’s “ Reason To Believe “, from their new album Some Bright Morning. Very beautuful, too, is Hannah Read singing “Quiet Joys of Brotherhood” (orig. Richard & Mimi Farina, from Wrapped In Lace, 2012). Also up my street is Carolina Chocolate Drops doing “Political Words” by Bob Dylan (from Chimes of Freedom: The Songs of Bob Dylan, 2012).

Two particularly interesting takes on Ashkenazi music and Balkan now. Klezmer Kaos are, as the name implies, a French-Icelandic accordion-centric punky klezmer band. I heard them from the icelandic muic blog Rjóminn. Here’s a track:

The Destroyers play a kind of noir Balkan ska cabaret. Read about them and listen at Folk Radio UK.