Beyond the Pale, formed in 1998 in Toronto, is a young quintet making lively klezmer-based music. The fact that they’ve played more than 200 gigs in their three years together has paid off in a top-notch debut recording.
Routes is a mixture of tunes written by band members and traditional pieces given delightful and artful arrangements. They sometimes combine seemingly disparate styles, such as traditional Jewish wedding dances and a reggae beat, as in “ChasenJah,” adapted by mandolinist Eric Stein. Stein’s playing is both technically accomplished and very expressive, and Martin Van de Ven contributes a Benny Goodman-inspired jazzy clarinet solo.
Throughout the CD, the band’s interplay is tight yet light-handed, suffused by a palpable sense of joy and playfulness.
The opening suite pairs violinist Anne Lindsay’s tune “Eavesdropping” with Stein’s “Icebreaker.” The former sees the ensemble taking turns playing and embellishing on Lindsay’s lilting melody: first the violin, then mandolin, then Sasha Luminsky on accordion and Van de Ven on bass clarinet. “Icebreaker”‘s complementary tune is a faster, driving dance piece, with an impressive mandolin and violin duet, and a gorgeously played bass line from Bret Higgins.
Singer Dave Wall contributes Russian and Yiddish vocals on two traditional songs, “Vander Ich Mir Lustig,” a wry Yiddish song set to a Russian sailor’s dance, and “Vodka,” a melodramatic song about a man drowning his sorrows, which involve an unfaithful girlfriend and a former best friend. Another suite combines three Stein tunes: “Bulcharescu,” a Rumanian melody set to a polyrhythmic Middle Eastern beat; “Grebenyas,” a hora-like klezmer-Balkan tune inspired by the traditional European Jewish snack food of fried chicken skin; and “Sirbish,” a rapid Rumanian-style dance.
The album ends on another suite, “Doina and Honga,” pairing a klezmer tune played by Stein on the tsimbl (hammer dulcimer), with an up-tempo Moldavian dance. On the latter number, fiddler Lindsay may be pushing herself a little beyond her comfort zone, which happens with other members of Beyond the Pale a time or two on the recording — which to me is better than always playing it safe.
The only number that doesn’t work for me is “Gyration,” a newgrass piece featuring some funky mandolin playing. It’s a nice tune, but it doesn’t fit well with the rest of the music. But I hope Beyond the Pale keeps experimenting, playing and having fun with this kind of music. Routes is a very nice recording that honors the roots of klezmer and other Eastern European music while not remaining slavishly bound to tradition. It is indeed as they say in the liner notes “suffused by the past but bubbling with the present.”
Learn more at the band’s website, and the Borealis website.
(Borealis, 2001)
