Abraham Inc goes "Tweet Tweet"

I'm totally digging the new Abraham Inc. album. It's a full on, head on, collision of klezmer, funk, and hip-hop music. Here's the blurb (I love blurbs.)

"An unprecedented collaboration between three cultural visionaries: DAVID KRAKAUER, champion of klezmer music and world-class clarinetist; legendary funk trombonist and arranger FRED WESLEY, celebrated for his work with James Brown and George Clinton; and hip-hop renegade and beat architect SOCALLED – Abraham Inc"

What underlies that blurb is a real depth of knowledge in each of the music styles, but what makes the album work the way in which Abraham Inc cleverly uses a very contemporary, stuttery, cut & paste, hip-hop oriented approach to the funk and klezmer merger. The hip-hop style breaks help deconstruct the two musical styles and reconstruct them as assembled fragments of the new compositions. In this collage of bouncing and popping fragments, it sounds totally natural to hear Socalled's Yiddish bounce against C-Rayz Walz's English raps or hear Krakuer's clarinet klezmer runs bounce against Wesley's horn sections.

Abraham Inc Tweet Tweet (Official Music Video)

While Tweet Tweet is the first single, and a worthy track, my favorite is the H-Tune, a reconstruction of "Yidlach Anthem" Hava Nagila. It's a great example of their style, Hava Nagila's melody is broken in to phrases all of which are layered on top of each other and over funk horns. What you end up with is NOT Hava Nagila, it takes some work to pull out the Hava Nagila phrases. What it is, is the H-Tune.

The H Tune (Hava Nagila)

For more info and to buy the album, check out the Abraham Inc. website and Facebook pages.

Hat tip to AliciaKraks for posting the H-Tune video (shot back in Feb 2010). AliciaKraks happens to be Alicia Krakauer, H-Tune vocalist and daughter of David Krakauer.