Daniel Kahn / Umru (Unrest)

Some look to the top 40, or to prophets of a bygone age such as Leonard Cohen or Bob Dylan, to capture the feel of our time. I turn to Daniel Kahn. This timely new collection of traditional and contemporary songs—some newly written by Kahn, or newly translated, seems to know exactly what I need. His cover of Stephen Foster's "Hard Times" (Daless) deserves to be as widely circulated as his Yiddish version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah."

The album opens with Will Oldham's "Nomadic Revery" and "Mayn Umru fun a volf" which to me felt perfect for the despair and purpose I have felt since the most recent Presidential election in the US. In this sort of mood, Ewan MacColl's "Dirty old town" and Stephen Foster's "Hard Times" make perfect Yiddish sense. The new composition, "Godbrother" (Got-Bruder) is one of the saddest hymns to our difficulty in seeing, understanding, the other, all increasingly in the name of religious fanaticism and blindness. (It also appears on the collection לידער מיט פאלעסטינע \ Lider mit Palestine.) Kahn then celebrates the turn away from statehood as a solution to racism or oppression, singing in his Nazaroff persona, "Golus, Golus, Golus." In its own way, the album-ending translation of Tom Waits' "Time" (Tsayt) puts a stamp on it.

Listening to Billy Bragg at this year's Solid Sound festival, standing in the rain, I heard him say something to the effect that Music and Solidarity give us power; not the power to change the world, but power to believe that the world can be changed. Daniel Kahn's music exemplifies that power to believe. It remains on us to change the world.

Reviewed by Ari Davidow, 2-Jul-2026.

Songs

1. Nomadic Revery—Umetum (Will Oldham; Yiddish: Daniel Kahn) 3:37
2. Mayn Umru fun a Volf—Restless as a Wolf (trad/Moyshe Leyb Halpern; Arr, English: Daniel Kahn)) 5:12
3. Dirty Old Town—Drekikeh Shtot (Ewan MacColl; Yiddish: Daniel Kahn) 3:19
4. Gone Aground (Daniel Kahn) 3:10
5. Godbrother—Got-Bruder (Daniel Kahn) 2:59
6. Ich fühl’ mich nicht zu Hause—Nit Heymish (Georg Kreisler; Yiddish: Isabel Frey, Daniel Kahn) 4:37
7. Hard Times—Daless (Stephen Foster; Yiddish: Daniel Kahn, Asia Fruman) 4:13
8. Proster Bronfn—Regular Brandy (Daniel Kahn, Trad; English: Daniel Kahn) 2:49
9. Graue Straße—Old Gray Highway (Trad; English: Daniel Kahn) 6:03
10. Golus! Golus! Golus!—Diaspora Medley (Trad, Nathan 'Prince' Nazaroff) 6:04
11. Time—Tsayt (Tom Waits; Yiddish: Daniel Kahn) 4:18