Think that radical music with a message only comes in indecipherable screaming with a thumping guitar and loud drums? Well you would be wrong.
Old, forgotten and buried songs got a funky new lease on life when the San Francisco based band Charming Hostess won over the crowd in Davis Auditorium last Saturday night. The vocal group combines two separate worlds to create a whole new funky one.
The group led by Jewlia Eisenberg with Cynthia Taylor and Marika Hughes is a vocal powerhouse. The three woman can all sing as well as beat box. Their voices were soulful and expressive. The three-part harmonies were not only to die for but they were dead on all the time. The entire concert was done a capella. They sing in German, English, Bosnian and Ladino These ladies’ have voices so sweet they could sing about anything and make it sound good and they do.
The center piece of the show was from the band’s latest CD, Sarajevo Blues, sets Bosnian poetry from the siege of the capital, to a funky, Jewish-Afro back beat. The music draws on several influences including Jewish, Sufi and Balkan. The result is startling and not in a bad way. The music, which is at times happy and lively is directly contrast to the somber and gruesome lyrics.
The best example is from the song “Death is a Job” with lyrics that are anything but happy.
“I’m running across an intersection to avoid the bullet of a sniper from the hill when I walk straight into some photographers: they’re doing their job, in deep cover. If a bullet hit me they’d get a shot worth so much more than my life that I’m not even sure whom to hate: the Chetnik sniper or these monkeys with Nikons.”
The product is toe-tapping good, even where discomfort should reign.
This wasn’t the only tough topic that trio took on. A second suite was devoted to songs from a previous album taken from a biography about Walter Benjamin, a Jewish philosopher, and specifically his tumultuous relationship with Asja Lacis, a well-known Bolshevik. The music is fast-paced and downright funky. It is a tongue-in-cheek look at the completely dysfunctional relationship.
The trio also performed two songs in Ladino that were sweet in nature and the music and voices were of course great. It was a challenge to stay seated when dancing in the aisle was really called for.
The group members were energetic from the beautiful, spiritual entrance song to their similar spiritual style exit. The show flowed from one song to the next with jokes and explanations taking stage equally. The trio definitely seemed to be enjoy every moment of the performance and it was hard not get into the spirit of the evening.
Charming Hostess walks a line between two worlds and it could go horribly wrong but the music never veers off course. The harmonies are on point and grand. The voice as an instrument was full exploited with not just sining but breath taking a prominent role in songs.
The bottom line experimentation never had a more harmonious sound.
