DI NIGUNIM:

Balagan: CD EP

Di Nigunim is an anarcho-klezmer punk collective from San Diego. Politically and musically radical, Di Nigunim plays an intense brand of punk rock inspired by traditional Jewish music employing an expansive rotating roster of musicians who rip shit up on accordion, piano, sax, trumpet, and a fuck ton of drums. Think a more dynamic and rougher Gogol Bordello and you’re on the right track. Traditional songs such as “L’Cha Dodi” and “Havenu Shalom” are sung in Hebrew with vocals from everyone, creating a sonic atmosphere of a socially lubricated and riotous Jewish wedding. Throw this one on at your next socially conscious dance party.                 –Jeff Proctor

InKlezmer punk rock, Bach on the way to... Yegor Letov, Spent Instruments, Vladimir Visotsky, All night dancing and bloody feet, Tom Waits, Kurt Weill + the Lovely Lotte Lenya, Morning Rain Clouds Rain, R. Buckminster Fuller, Silence at just the right moments, Theodore Bikel, Lajko Felix, Revolution, Rilke, Taraf De Haidouks, Broken plates, murder ballads, De Kift, Crass, the wailing ghosts of capitalism’s past victims, Kocani Orkestar, Robot Farts---, our beloved and dearly dep[arted, drnken balagan and that moment you know youre gonna die but just don’t care.

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"Leave us, proud man! We are wild and have no laws, We do not torture or punish - We have no need of blood or moans - But we won't live with a murderer... You are not born for the savage life! You want freedom only for yourself." -Pushkin ***********************************************

The NIGUN (from the Hebrew 'lenagen': play music) is a simple, wordless and easy to remember, often religious folk tune, usually composed by a rabbi or a member of a 'hoyf' (rabbinical court), sometimes borrowed from the local folk or foreign tunes and 'sanctified' ('mekadesh zayn a nign')! Sung repetitively and with 'kavanah' (concentration) by all the members of a community, it bears (among prone subjects!) a kind of mystic ecstasy. The 'tish nigunim' accompanied meals, the 'Deveykus nigunim', often arrhythmic, were dedicated to God, the 'Gass'n nigunim' used for the processionals and the 'treredike nigunim' for meditation and crying. The nigunim are usually sung with onomatopoeia: 'bim, bom' around Moditz, 'ay di gi day' in Ger, 'Ti la lidl la li la lo' à Karlyn, 'lay lay lay' in Bobov or 'oy, yoy' in Lubavitch...