Tales Worth (Re)Telling

Alan and I blogged pretty extensively about our time at the South by Southwest music festival for MyJewishLearning.com, but there's one artist I wanted to give a little more digital face-time.

Fiddler extraordinaire and biblical scholar (yeah, that's right) Alicia Jo Rabins is best known for her work with the funky klezmer-rock group Golem, but she's recently struck out on her own with new musical motivation. Alicia has formed a group called Girls in Trouble, which performed at both the Birthright Israel NEXT/JDub Records Rest Stop and the JDub showcase at SXSW. The band offers folky modern midrash on the stories of oft-overlooked biblical women. (The songs reminded Alan and me of Stereo Sinai's G-dcast - Lech Lecha song, written from the matriarch Sarah's point of view.)

Right on, Alicia!

It was interesting to see Alicia put down her fiddle in favor of a flat electric, apparently bought for next to nothing on the streets of New York (she acts her own string section on the recordings, but the orchestral background doesn't show up in concert). Girls in Trouble's tunes are mellow and accessible, introspective without being indulgent- kind of the Dar Williams of biblical rock. The subjects of the songs are varied, thoughtful, and unexpected. Girls in Trouble has a great song about Miriam that doesn't focus on watching Moses, or the well, or dancing by the sea. It's a darker, more silently complex moment in Miriam's life that gets the attention- I'll leave it to you to listen and figure it out.

From song to song, whoever the character, Alicia embodies her with heart. Expect an album released on JDub Records in September of this year. Till then, satisfy yourself with the few tunes available on Girls in Trouble's Myspace page.

Alicia also contributed a song for G-dcast, Parshat Vayakhel! Check it out below: