Tremblers of Sevens – Aleppo
NoiseAgonyMayhem – September 2018
During the morning of the day I began writing this review, the BBC News website routinely reported that in just the two weeks prior, at least 270,000 people had been displaced (not to mention 130-plus killed) by the ongoing conflict in (southwestern) Syria. Included among the ‘minor’stories, by the afternoon it had already been archived and did not appear in the ‘Most Read’ list. I am obviously not blaming the Beeb or their ilk, but much like the appalling situation in Yemen the now seven-year-long Syrian Civil War – in which hundreds of thousands have died – has largely slipped from mainstream headlines and therefore, generally speaking, also from public consciousness. Not everybody has forgotten about it, though, especially Tremblers of Sevens, from Victoria, British Columbia.
Following a succession of live recordings, off-the-floor jams and one-off single releases, with their first proper studio album the hard-hitting duo has delivered a stark reminder that the war in Syria rages grimly on, with seemingly no end in sight to the unimaginable misery and suffering. Before even a single note of this blistering album is heard, its title, Aleppo, and the mirrored sleeve image of that shattered city’s destroyed buildings, deliver loud and clear statements as to the intention of this release over and above musical entertainment. As unpalatable as it may seem, it relates that we have a human duty to remain educated to and aware of the daily hell that is life in Syria, Yemen, and other nations currently (read: ever) enduring conflict and sociopolitical upheaval. Yet within Aleppo’s harrowingly direct packaging, what the veteran musicians Dan Weisenberger (‘Wise’ or, on occasion, ‘Doc Hoss’) and Juli Steemson (‘Rad’ Juli) have created is as effective a face-melting collection of amped-up roots-rock music, as its title and sleeve are startling.
Wise and Rad have yet to deliver a composition of their own but, at least currently, that is not the point of Tremblers of Sevens. Their thing is to carefully pluck gems from the extensive catalogues of vintage folk, blues, and international music (especially klezmer), then plug in, crank it up loud and hammer the material out in a manner, as Wise has previously stated, ‘like Black Sabbath would do it.’ It is truly visceral stuff, and in respect of guitar/drums duos, The White Stripes or The Black Keys this ain’t, but what it is is as raw, as vital, as real, and as punk as it gets.
Musically influenced by just about everything, as mentioned above one area of intense interest for the duo is the musical traditions of other nations, and to that end, Aleppo is sprinkled with field recordings captured on trips to Morocco and Turkey in 2017. The album opens with one such snippet, a recording of an Imam from Istanbul’s Süleymaniye Mosque, then Rad’s thunderous drums usher in Wise’s distorted slide guitar and ominous baritone for a spine-tingling rendition of the traditional Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down. Recorded many times (check out great versions by R.L. Burnside and Charlie Parr & The Black Twig Pickers), in this instance, it was learned from the recording by ‘Mississippi’ Fred McDowell and the Hunter’s Chapel Singers.
Hearing Wise play acoustically live these days is rare, but he does so beautifully on guitar and mandolin for a minute-and-a-half at the beginning of the klezmer tune, Chusidl (meaning, I understand, a ‘very pious child or young man’). Things are soon beefed up, however, with loud Link Wray-flavoured electric guitar and Rad’s galloping drums roaring in, accompanied by a wild trumpet, courtesy of Michael Mazza.
Chusidl and the following take on the traditional country-gospel number, (I Am a) Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow are segued by an Islamic adhan (call to prayer), recorded outside the Spice Bazaar in Istanbul: so, a Jewish song and an African-American spiritual linked by the ethereal voice of a Muslim muezzin – what is occurring here? While it could be interpreted that Tremblers of Sevens are intending to poke the bear, as Rad explains this deliberate multicultural mash-up stems from a mentality of wishing to break down barriers, rather than leave them standing or erect new ones:
“We included the calls to prayer and the sounds of buskers between Yiddish, Middle Eastern and Western spirituals because all blues are the same blues, regardless of geographic location. Music is our common language, and as long as we can hear each other we can transcend all of the boundaries and borders that get used as excuses to alienate us from our fellow humans.”
Containing the telling line, No hope in this world for tomorrow, cavernous reverb and a ton of echo (on Wise’s vocal) are employed for the rhythmically jerky Poor Pilgrim of Sorrow, and it’s heavier than heck. Just as gritty and full-on is Baym Rebn’s Sude (translating as At the Rabbi’s Table, or Rabbi’s Meal), a traditional Jewish wedding tune. Wise and Rad are joined by Dennis Siemens (As the Crow Flies/Front Porch String Pickin’ Band) on bass for an interpretation of it they describe as ‘a triumphant Sabbath march celebrating survivors.’
Wise then gets deep into a soulful, though loud and scuffed up John the Revelator, long a gospel-blues standard since its first recording by Blind Willie Johnson in 1930. Tremblers of Sevens take their cue from the Son House version, and considering the apparent overarching themes of Aleppo, with its apocalyptic lyrical connotations, it would appear that this song’s inclusion was a curated choice.
A third Yiddish tune, the instrumental Meron Nign, sees Wise creating an otherworldly atmosphere atop Rad’s massive drum sound by utilizing tremolo to wonderful effect. In respect of this and the overall sound of Aleppo, considerable credit must go to the project’s recording engineer, Myke Hall. Having previously worked with such as Vancouver Island roots legends Carolyn Mark and David P. Smith, Wise and Rad offered him virtually free reign to run riot all over Aleppo with reverb, delay and more effects, and he has done so beautifully, yet with respect to both the duo’s vision and the source material. Recorded in one live session – remarkably, all the vocals are first-takes – only the bass, trumpet, mandolins and acoustic guitars were overdubbed.
The penultimate track, Blind Lemon Jefferson’s blues standard, See That My Grave is Kept Clean, has previously been recorded by a host of artists as diverse as Peter, Paul & Mary and Laibach. However, there is certainly room for another rendition when – inspired by a combination of the original, Martin Simpson’s 1995 Smoke & Mirrors recording, and live performances by John Hammond, Jr. – it is as in-your-face as Tremblers of Sevens do it here. This is a classic example of how Wise and Rad take a seemingly well-trodden path for it to lead somewhere previously unexplored.
In contrast to the heavy moods that have preceded it, Aleppo wraps up in surprising and relatively light fashion with the eighty-seven seconds-long instrumental, Sam Ash Tango (Frailach # 12), bringing to a close an album that is sonically thrilling and, depending on your standpoint, thematically controversial. While it may well offend some sensitive, devout folks, by including diametrical elements from across religious and cultural divides Aleppo may/should provoke discussions about why, due to dusty, steadfast traditions and belief systems formed millennia ago, it remains a ridiculous aspect of the human condition that – when we are capable of creating technology to photograph the limits of the known universe – we are yet to find ways to coexist peacefully, side by side, just as the representative field recordings do here. Essentially, then their inclusion is a call for peace and sanity in times when both are seemingly rapidly dissipating.
In this context, aside from the powerhouse performances therein, Aleppo is an important and thought-provoking album. Yet this fact is amplified enormously when learning that every cent generated by sales of this and all previous Tremblers of Sevens releases goes to assist funding the efforts of Doctors Without Borders/Médicins Sans Frontieres in Syria, and other war-ravaged areas around the world. If anyone reading should somehow (in my humble opinion, inexplicably) care not a jot for Tremblers of Sevens’ music, this fact alone is reason enough to purchase everything they release, regardless.
https://tremblersofsevens.bandcamp.com/