Tales From The Forgotten Kingdom

Jerusalem-born Guy Mendilow has synthesized his research into the surviving music, culture and tales of the Sephardic community (especially focusing on Sarajevo and Greece) to produce these captivating tracks from a live performance; collaborating with Argentine tango singer Sofia Tosello, a Palestinian drummer and an American violinist and a woodwind player, Mendilow has created songs that hark back to both the ancient land of medieval Spain, and, more recently the lost Sephardic communities of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Balkans during WWII; they are not word for word authentic but rather capture the spirit of a lost time using Ladino against today's textured soundscapes; a few seconds applause at the end of each track

No FCC's; Favorite Tracks: 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 11

1- 'The Mountain Ahead Burns' –3:21 – dramatic vocal solo plus violins and percussion

2—'Sisters, Queen and Captive' –3:35 – medieval sounding music leads into female vocal

*3—Cocek–6:06 – Middle Eastern sounding instrumental; very fast-paced at outset, slows to a bridge

**4- 'A Night by the Sea' -(6:06) – starts with mysterious-sounding thumb piano and beautiful soprano harmony in a song originally from Bulgaria; lovely violin; segues to duet between Tosello and Mendilow; a rich and evocative tapestry of sound

5-'A Modern Man' -(2:51)-- vocals in Ladino – percussion and instrumentation (except for digeridoo) sound medieval

*6- 'The Siren' – (5:06) – dramatic, flamenco style guitar with vocals and crying violin

*7- 'Why Weep, Fair One?' -(4:48) – beautiful plucked arpeggios and plaintive voice of Tosello; more authentic sounding Ladino song; goes from minor to major in instrumental bridge –nice woodwind

*8- 'For A Grandmother/The Young Count Arose' – (6:18) – pretty beginning with berimbau (?) and voice; interesting percussive effects and percussion solo

9- 'Dark One' – (4:27) – flamenco style singing and guitar

*10- 'O My Brothers' –(story and song) - (6:26) – guitar and then spoken words in English introduce the story of what happened to the Jews in Greece and Balkans during WWII – poem set to music; mournful and beautiful

*11- 'Already Out of the Sea' –(4:18) – voice plus guitar; quiet, slow; evocative violin plus woodwind; berimbau and then flute indicate Part B which speeds into a medieval dance