Related info:

About Di Gojim

Fun sjtetl un sjtets

Noch a Sjoh

Ideeel Organiseren
web site
(Di Gojim management)

Di Gojim
Grine Medine
Syncoop Produkties, 5751 CD 131, 1991
info@digojim.nl

Management: Ideëel World Music
Weteringschans 269, 1017 XJ Amsterdam
+31 (0) 20 420 17 11 / fax: +31 (0) 20 626 68 45
worldmusic@ideeel.org

1. Bessarabianke 2:04
2. Vot ken you mach? Es iz Amerike! 3:30
3. Shlof majn kind / Abe Schwartz's famous sher 3:39
4. Firn di mechetonim ahejm 3:18
5. Lomir sich iberbetn / sherele 3:52
6. Di Silberne Chasene 3:05
7. A Libe 2:46
8. Tatar tants 2:46
9. Trandafir cu creangan apa / Freilach fun Sebesh 4:40
10. Glatter Bulgar 3:05
11. Freilachs fun L.A. 3:00
12. Freilach fun Gilrod un Sandler 2:02
13. Moldoveniaske 2:24
14. Maidlach wie blumen 5:04

I came across this odd klezmer album whilst wandering one day at Down Home Records, source of many odd and wondrous things musical. A Dutch Klezmer band called "the Goyim?" What next?

But there is an incredible and wonderful humor to this album, much (all?) of which appears to have been recorded live. By the second song, when European musicians attack that lovely Lebedeff/Secunda plaint, "What can you do? It is America" that I began to come unglued. These guys are good. And worse, they're having fun! This isn't wedding music from a museum, it's music played by people who know it and enjoy it!

The sparse liner notes (repeated in several languages--hence the sparseness) do little to illuminate the band's background except to specify that they love klez because it is "hybrid" music--a fusion of many styles (and clearly these guys have fun playing them all). Whatever, it's all klez now, and one of my favorite albums of the last few years. Ari sez, "check it out!"

Reviewed by Ari Davidow 5/4/96

I also have a klezmer band I think you don't know yet. It's the Dutch band 'Di Goyim' and they're very good. They have a very good reputation for playing live but their records are also good. The clarinet-player (and singer) is outstanding. They play klezmer like it should be played in my opinion: technically good, but not sterile, not 100% perfect, but a bit rough, with passion instead of playing on routine, and not too much Old World nostalgia (rather a wink to the past). In short: they have a lot that [other popular band] lacks. ... This is a band that deserves to get known!

e-mail from G.B. Zaagsma" (S0540056@let.rug.nl), 8/95