Possessed is an album by the American klezmer group the Klezmatics, released in 1997.Ethnic American Literature: Comparing Chicano, Jewish, and African American ... - Dean J. Franco - Google Books
Production The album was produced by Robert Musso. "Moroccan Game" is an instrumental.
The second half contains the band's score to Tony Kushner's A Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds.The New Rolling Stone Album Guide - Google Books Kushner also penned the liner notes.
Critical reception
Robert Christgau opined that "this is a vision band with a genre, not a genre band with a vision." The Advocate wrote that "there's a heaviness to the Klezmatics that's anathema to ordinary klezmer music, which by its very nature and function is escapist, even as it celebrates cultural cohesion."
The Windsor Star stated that "the clarinet wails, the fiddle and horns sing, the beat is incessant, and the Yiddish vocals transcend the language barrier." The Chicago Tribune thought that "Alicia Svigals' violin is a revelation, and Lorin Sklamberg's vocals—which can be as sublime as a cantor's or as sly as a drunk's—evoke the Jewish diaspora in both divine and uniquely American terms."
AllMusic wrote that "while there is plenty of their familiar frenzied spiritual party music, there is also some goregeously evocative minor-key mysticism."
Track listing Shprayz Ikh Mir Kolomeyke Moroccan Game An Undoing World Mizmor Shir Lehanef (Reefer Song) Shvartz Un Vays (Black and White) Lomir Heybn Dem Bekher Sirba Matey Matey Mipney Ma Beggars' Dance Shnaps-Nign Interlude Dybbuk Shers Fradde's Song Der Shvatser Mi Adir (The Black Benediction) Hinokh Yafo Mipney Ma (reprise)
References