Der Hemshekh דער המשך

Der Hemshekh דער המשך ( eng: the continuation ) is an album fully inspired by and dedicated to invisible women’s biographies, stories and female sagas, sung and written by Maria Ka entirely in Yiddish. This Music material consists both of traditional Jewish songs, adapted to a woman’s perspective, and newly written Yiddish pieces immersed in contemporary context and current subjects.

The starting point of the whole story are already-existing lyrics of Jewish songs, in which the heroines are entangled in, both universal and characteristic of Yiddish pieces, narrative threads: autonomy and separation from an overprotective mother, seduction and poverty.

These fragments are then continued in pieces written contemporarily by Maria Ka. Their lyrics are the extension of biographies included in well-known Jewish songs, taking into account the chosen moments of woman’s course of life. Such lifeline and lyrical continuity gets filled and completed with modern sounds of vocals, keyboard, loopers, oboe and drums, forming the musical landscape
of electronic, alternative, avantgarde and ethnic genre.

More universally, Der Hemshekh דער המשך is a manifesto of women’s visibility, presence, existence and participation in the public life, especially in its most important parts, both political and social. It is a call for the ultimate equality, regaining the lost fundamental laws ( especially in the context of Poland that was started with restricting already strict abortion law in January 2021 ),
the fall of double standards and equalizing the existing disproportions.

Yiddish is a very important aspect of the whole, of currently written and composed songs
in particular. It is a language rarely used nowadays for creating new artistic forms, and in general opinion might exist rather as an element of the past or some religious circles than contemporary Music pieces. Maria Ka restores its culture-forming function and presents a Music story about Jewish woman’s life – path: maturation, individual changes, emotions, breakthroughs and events dependent on history.

This whole process and album is a contribution to uncovering centuries-long-unseen, unnoticed and not commemorated woman’s experience, the one often omitted, not engraved in metal monuments, not transferred from generation to generation. Der Hemshekh דער המשך distinctively marks its presence in hitherto dominant patriarchal narrative and creates a new quality of telling Yiddish stories: modern, diverse and individually matched.

Maria Ka: vocals, keyboard, electronics, production, concept
Agnieszka Waśniewska: oboe
Jacek Rezner: drums