Name: Everything Returns
Brand: Black Ox Orkestar

Bonus disc

Bonus disc: No

Catalogue number

CST169LP

Colour

Black

Colour details

Discogs ID

Format multiplier

Download code

Download code: Yes

Rough Trade Exclusive

Rough Trade Exclusive: No

Extended format

Extended format: No

Format detail

Deluxe 180g LP with 350gsm Arktika jacket/inner and 36”x12” art/lyrics fold-out + download code

Format Music GB

Limited edition

Release date

2022-12-02

Signed copies

Signed copies: No

Supplier GB

Cargo

Tax rate GB

Standard:20

UPC / Barcode

666561016913

Total Cap

1 / Black / LP

CST169CD

Download code: No

666561016920

Artist

Black Ox Orkestar

Genre GB

Alternative / Modern

Label GB

Constellation

Distributed by <a href="http://scdistribution.com">SC Distribution</a>, Constellation has established itself as a reputable force within the music industry. The label's commitment to quality and artistic expression shines through in every release. Whether you're a fan of experimental sounds or simply appreciate boundary-pushing music, Constellation offers an unparalleled listening experience.

Discover the captivating world of Constellation today and immerse yourself in the extraordinary talent that this Canadian label has to offer.

Everything Returns reunites the original Black Ox Orkestar lineup following a 15-year hiatus. Arising from the fertile Montréal post-punk agit-prop scene of the early 2000s, the band comprises Scott Gilmore, Jessica Moss and Thierry Amar of Thee Silver Mt. Zion (Amar also continues to compose and play bass for Godspeed You! Black Emperor) and Gabriel Levine of Sackville.

Black Ox made two acclaimed albums of roiling acoustic avant-folk in the mid-2000s, exploring Eastern European and North African folkways through the lens of a gritty, resonant indie rock sensibility, juxtaposing interpretations of instrumentals from various Jewish, Romani and Arabic traditions with originals led by Gilmore’s politically-charged Yiddish vocals. These early albums have since become lodestars for many among a new generation of Yiddish, Klezmer and radical Jewish diasporic music practitioners and fans. First revealing its resurrection in February 2022 with a surprise flexi 7” single issued by left journal Jewish Currents as a gift to its thousands of subscribers, Black Ox has indeed fully and fruitfully reunited. Exquisitely recorded by Greg Norman (Jason Molina, Nina Nastasia, Electrical Audio), Everything Returns picks up right where the band left off: an incisively atmospheric, melancholic yet resolute album of uniquely modern Jewish folk music, with piano, violin, upright bass, clarinet and cymbalom making up the core instrumentation, and the vocal tunes sung primarily in Yiddish, alongside album centerpiece “Viderkol” and closer “Lamed-Vovnik” where English also features.

This is not fusion music, but diaspora music: a cross-cultural call and response of musical lexicons, emerging from the history of Jewish persecution and displacement, the musicology of 19th century repertoire from Jewish shtetls, the improvisational traditions of nusakh in Jewish music and taqsim in Arabic music, and a wider polyglot dialogue of Jewish, Slavic, Arabic, and Central Asian musical traditions. Lyrically and stylistically, Everything Returns connects key current issues from refugees forced to leave their homes, to the return of fascism and exclusionary nationalism—with the legacy of modernist Yiddish poetry and song. The new Black Ox Orkestar album is a sublime, poetic, politically-informed statement of re-energised diasporic musical intent, where Gilmore’s voice and the band’s simmering arrangements conjure an ardent, doleful balladry that echoes the sound and sensibility of artists like Tindersticks, The National, Nick Cave and Leonard Cohen.

Everything Returns is a haunting, richly textured, darkly sparkling song cycle at once from a vanished world and very much of our time and place.

Recorded by Greg Norman (Jason Molina, Nina Nastasia, Electrical Audio).

RIYL: A Hawk And A Hacksaw, Leonard Cohen, Daniel Kahn, Xylouris White, Arooj Aftab, Tindersticks, Nick Cave, Alasdair Roberts, Geoff Berner, The Klezmatics.&nbsp;

Everything Returns

Music GB