Album Notes

MIKHAIL HOROWITZ & GILLES MALKINE have been delighting Hudson Valley audiences for years, as well as others across the country. Their original, zany and imaginative verbal acrobatics and maladaptations of old tunes with new lyrics have left onlookers laughing until they’re gasping for breath. Their satirical takes on world currents consistently hit the mark, as do their rap versions of such literary classics as Moby Dick, Homer’s Odyssey, Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland, and Waiting for Godot. They perform songs on subjects as diverse as the lack of affordable health care, the blues origins of Macbeth and Hamlet, political unreality and surreality, the scant likelihood of sex after death, and the legacy of orthodox Jewish cowboys. Or, you may be treated to the granddaddy of all disaster-motif songs, or a faded and frayed remembrance of a fiery night in the ‘60s, or a rendition of Joyce Kilmer’s poem Trees as it might be recited by Blackbeard the Pirate.



QUOTES
“Horowitz does with the English language what Jim Carrey does with his face. His stuff is not only funny, it’s bracingly pungent, surprising, ear-opening, and is guaranteed to cleanse your mind of cobwebs.
“Just when you’re thinking about how you can’t remember when you laughed so much at a poetry reading, Mikhail Horowitz throws you a curve, and you find yourself moved. His rap versions of the classics, his language games, and the irresponsible relationship between him and his guitar-totin’ accomplice, Gilles Malkine, are a full-fledged delight to experience.”
- Peter Schickele (P.D.Q. Bach)

“With nimble tongue and dextrous wit, Horowitz and Malkine offer up burnt fallacies to the Gods of Reason. The two bring an insouciant irreverence to these troubling times, with a scathing multi-media performance that comments on everything from organized religion to corporate fat cats to Beat poets. And somehow, it all makes sense...”
- Erica Freudenberger Woodstock Times