It's time for July Bandcamp Friday, and I'm still catching up with amazing new music
It being "Bandcamp Friday" again, any purchases you make from Bandcamp today go 100% to the musicians. Here are some of the things I've been listening to this past month:
- My favorite group of Yiddish song-writers and harmonizers are back with a new release, even better than their first stellar release: Levyosn's Dream, 2026 (reviewed 3-Jun-2026)
- Speaking of new Yiddish music, and only somewhat more political for these hard political times. Daniel Kahn does not disappoint with a new album, featuring violinist Jake Shulman-Ment and violinist Christian Dawid: Umru (unrest), 2025 (reviewed 2-Jul-2026)
- In a similar vein, The Klezmatics have released my favorite album since "Shteyt Oyf", with Americana, global songs of solidarity in English, Spanish, Yiddish … and of course, great new klezmer tunes: We were made for these times, 2026 (reviewed 11-Jun-2026)
- Speaking of Klezmer, the amazing klezmer flautist Adrianne Greenbaum is back with Di klezmer flute nisht fargesn, 2025 (reviewed 25-Jun-2026)
- Representing a younger wave of young klezmer musicians who have spent time in Eastern Europe, Jake Shulman-Ment & Abigale Reisman shine on / Tsvey strunes (Two-strings), 2025 (reviewed 1-Jul-2026)
- In a more liturgical vein, I was blown away by Jewish bluegrass band, Jacob's Ladder, at Ashkenaz two years ago. Their new release is even better than I remember, highlighting prayers and psalms like Shlomo Carlebach, but in an idiom appropriate to now: HaMakom, 2026 (reviewed 25-Jun-2026)
- Sticking briefly to liturgical music, this times from the Ashkenazi Cantorial nusakh, I have to recommend this release of women "khazntes" featuring some of today's most magnificent female voices: The return of the immortal khazntes, 2025 (reviewed 2-Jul-2026)
- And drawing from "Song of Songs," Middle Eastern "jam band," Pharaoh's Daughter featuring the voice of the wonderful (since we last heard from the band, now a Hazzanit, herself) Basya Schechter with Songs of Desire, 2026 (reviewed 21-Jun-2026)
- The past is not past, and scholar Anna Shternshis and her ensemble bring more of the Holocaust-era songs collected by Moshe Beregovski after the Holocaust, then suppressed by the Soviets: Yiddish Glory / Silenced songs of WWII, 2026 (reviewed 23-Jun-2026)
- Finally, listening to the future past, I have been entranced by the Electronica magic of Electric Rose, in which Ilya Shneyveys and Cantor Sarah Myerson mix interviews, old recordings, beats, singing, and their own instruments to create an exciting new listening and dance release: The Rose Cohen Experience, 2025 (reviewed 1-Jul-2026)
Stay tuned—there's loads more to come as the summer rolls on.