Album Notes

The People's Republic of Klezmerica--Klezmer from the Ozark Borderlands of Missouri

"Klezmer music has taken root in some strange places. Lots of people think it belongs in the big cities of the East, and are shocked that there's klezmer in Missouri--but sometimes the most interesting strands are those that wander away from the mainstream and get inadvertently embedded in some strange new environment. The PRK has grown from the roots and repertoire of Eastern European and early American klezmer but has been watered by the strange streams that flow through the Ozark Borderlands, the "Bosom of Hillbilly-Jewish culture". What has emerged is in a class all its own--"dirty-fingernails klezmer," as it's been called-- a wild, raucous, acoustic sound forged on sweaty dance floors in the Midwest, field-tested and proven to increase everyone's heartbeart and fill them with the contagious energy the band exhibits.

"This "Dirty-fingernails klezmer of the Lower Midwest" is full of a contagious energy, and you'll find yourself dancing even if you never thought you were the type to go wild to a hot freylekhs. And if you're already familiar with the klezmer scene you'll recognize the fresh sound and approach of this this young 8-piece musical tribe. There's a new blast of Missouri chutspa in their brassy Yiddish dances and hot Yiddish swing tunes, a new flowering of the klezmer scene in an oft-forgetten corner of the klezmer diaspora. "