As Yosef Gutman Levitt plucks the strings on “Why Ten?”, it’s as if each note bobs like a lantern on some nocturnal sea, guiding lost ships toward mystic shores of Jewish numerology. In this new album, Levitt does not just play music, calling out storms and serenades from beyond, meshing sandy desert melodies with rainforest rhythms.
“Why Ten?” is not an album; it’s a merry-go-round ride whirling around the cosmic significance buried in the number ten. It whispered otherworldly jazzes, carried by tender guitar strums from Gilad Hekselman and Ofri Nehemya’s drumbeats that pulsate like heartbeats echoing through ancient cedars. They invite us to groves where traditions twist and twine, revealing sacred knots that bind spiritual realms to our mundane world.
Stefano Amerio incubates this spectral symphony within crystalline walls of sound production, breathing as if alive: a living creature birthed from harmony and heritage. Here lies the alchemistic pot in which notes are cooked together—haunting woodwinds by Gilad Ronen whispering secrets heard only once in a lifetime during chilled twilight breezes.
This record takes one atop the hills of Jerusalem at dusk, where every chord grows leaves to meet the skies, colored by past epochs’ aspirations and sighs. It indeed feels global, yet exuberantly localized—a weird paradox, somewhat like standing on two boats firmly, with their horizons stretched in front of them.
Thus tuned deep inward, yet expansive outwards, Levitt crafts not mere songs, but spells capable of sweeping one off one’s feet—as enchanted sailors, enraptured under starlit voyages tracing routes of thought long before we listened or even breathed.
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