Echoing in cyclical time for thousands of years

When I first heard Erez Yechiel singing “Tikkun Klali” it changed my life. I was in Uman, the city where Rabbi Nachman(1772 – 1810, was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty) was buried. There are so many moments steeped in Jewish history, mysticism, culture and melody that when I hear them, I already know I’ve heard them echoing in cyclical time for thousands of years and it inspires me to create within the space of sound and blessings.

The Tikkun album inspired my Shir HaShirim album with Benyamin and Dugans (Dreams in Static) which I meditated to for months one summer while living in NY, I remember playing it for Matis and him feeling the same way.

Growing up listening to Yemenite and Mizrahi music inspired my producer name Diwon and the annual and popular Sephardic Music Festival. You could still find a lot of the music I was doing back then archived at Shemspeed.bandcamp.com and swipe over to see some of the images from my @Sephardicfest. Note; the last image which is the first poster for SMF and features a photo of my Great Grandfather, Shlomo.

Here’s the full story behind the Shir HaShirim, “While Diwon was in Uman, the city where Rabbi Nachman (1772 – 1810, was the founder of the Breslov Hasidic dynasty) was buried, he was inspired by the Tikkun Klali and brought together Benjamin and Dugans to record Shir HaShirim. The music mixes the emotive Moroccan singing of Benyamin in a “call out” to the most high, through the writings and poetry of King Solomon, with Diwon’s and Dugans’ signature walls of sound that bring hip hop, rock, and mizrachi influences to this middle eastern meditative record.”

– Erez Safar

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