Review: “I know these are songs that will have long lives.”
—Ozzy Irving Gold-Shapiro, Yiddish raconteur, archival tinkerer, and 1/6 of Burikes, May 2021
“I remember exactly where I was when I first heard “Hunting Season” off of Brivele’s latest harmonically complex, wildly imaginative, future-building album, Cradle Songs, Grave Songs. Taking poet Aurora Levins Morales’s task of “imagine winning” to heart, this latest collection from Brivele sings the past out of the archive and into the streets to fight, to struggle, to laugh, to mourn.
I could not stop listening to this album once I started. I am belting the words out loud and I know these are songs that will have long lives and many voices singing them into memory. Yiddish and English are beautifully woven together throughout, each winking the other language into new meaning.
As we are called to move beyond the present and breathe life into a new collective future, Brivele takes deep grief and explosive rage and tends to them, allowing them to grow roots. I love each excerpt and echo and thoughtfully chosen melody, and it’s amazing to see the depth of materials Brivele has pulled from in true folk punk fashion. Listening to Cradle Songs, Grave Songs is an experience in remembering and caring for the homes we carry in ourselves and within each other. Shkoyekh, Brivele, shkoyekh!”
