Photo by Gabrielle Plucknette
“Our music has often drawn inspiration from historical events, struggles for human rights, and poetry,” said the group’s primary songwriter, Dan Kaufman. “All these elements are woven together in this piece. We see this music as a small gesture of solidarity for the citizens of Gaza, especially for its children.”
“Rooftops of Tehran,” the album’s B side, is a reference to the 2009 protests against the Iranian regime in response to apparently rigged election results. The voice at the beginning is that of a young woman speaking into her phone, hoping that calls of “Allahu Akbar” from the city’s rooftops would continue through the night. The cries were a sign that defiance against the government had not been extinguished.
The cover, by the visual artist Adam O’Neal, was based on an image taken by the Palestinian photojournalist Said Khatib, who gave the rendering his blessing. Arabic calligraphy was drawn by the Lebanese fashion designer Gabi Asfour (threeASFOUR), and the Arabic poem on the A side was translated by his sister, Nana Asfour, a journalist and editor. Artwork was created by Heung-Heung Chin, the designer for John Zorn’s Tzadik label. The music was recorded and mixed by Martin Bisi at B.C. Studio in Brooklyn and mastered by Fred Kevorkian at Kevorkian Mastering in Brooklyn. Jeff Mueller (Rodan, Shipping News, June of 44) printed the cover artwork on a letterpress at Dexterity Press in New Haven, Connecticut.
Proceeds from the recording will benefit World Central Kitchen and the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund.
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Barbez, sui generis luminaries of the New York music scene, craft a haunting mosaic that draws on avant-rock, old-world cabaret, European folksong, and contemporary classical.
Since forming in Brooklyn in the late 1990s, Barbez has released six albums, each mixed by the incomparable Martin Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans, Herbie Hancock). Force of Light, released on John Zorn’s Tzadik label, was an homage to the Romanian-Jewish Holocaust poet Paul Celan. The band’s follow-up, Bella Ciao, also released on Tzadik, was inspired by ancient Roman Jewish melodies and the Italian Resistance during World War II. In 2018, the group released For Those Who Came After: Songs of Resistance from the Spanish Civil War on Important Records, a Boston-based label that also released the group’s first two albums.
Barbez has performed hundreds of shows across the United States and Europe, including at the Festival Musicas del Mundo in Sines, Portugal; UCLA’s Royce Hall; the Festival Territoria in Moscow; and the Museum of Jewish Art and History in Paris. The group has collaborated with Dawn McCarthy (Faun Fables, Will Oldham), multi-instrumentalist Shahzad Ismaily (the group’s original drummer), and Nils Frykdahl (Sleepytime Gorilla Museum), among others. It has shared billings with such notable performers as Cat Power, John Zorn, the Sun Ra Arkestra, Devendra Banhart, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, MC5, and the Angels of Light.
Barbez maintains a long-running collaboration with John Jesurun, an experimental-theater director, filmmaker, playwright, and the recipient of a MacArthur “genius” grant. The band has composed scores for several of Jesurun’s theatrical works and performed them at the Berliner Festspiele, the Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art in New York, and the Howl Festival. Barbez has also contributed music for several dance works, including One and The Making of Americans, choreographed by the Bessie-award-winning dancer Juliette Mapp. The pieces were performed at Danspace Project and Dance Theater Workshop in New York.
Barbez is Pamelia Kurstin (David Byrne, Simone Dinnerstein), theremin; Peter Hess (Philip Glass Ensemble, Slavic Soul Party), clarinet, bass clarinet; Dan Kaufman (Rebecca Moore), guitar; Danny Tunick (Mad Scene, Guv’ner), marimba, vibraphone; Sarah Bernstein (Kid Millions & Sarah Bernstein), violin; Peter Lettre (Shearwater), bass; and John Bollinger (Sway Machinery), drums.
