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Psalm of David - Mizmor L'David

from Alphabet of Wrongdoing by Daniela Gesundheit

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  • Record/Vinyl + Digital Album

    Limited Edition Double White LP Box Set with 108 page Hardcover Libretto Book and CD.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Alphabet of Wrongdoing via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 14 days
    edition of 500 
    Purchasable with gift card

      $135 CAD or more 

     

  • Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album

    Limited Edition 108 page Hardcover Libretto Book with CD.

    Includes unlimited streaming of Alphabet of Wrongdoing via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    ships out within 10 days
    edition of 200 
    Purchasable with gift card

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  • ALPHABET OF WRONGDOING - SPECIAL EDITION

    WHAT YOU WILL RECEIVE IN THIS PACKAGE:
    A personalized postcard from Daniela sent to you by USPS
    Instant Download of the full Alphabet of Wrongdoing album in your preferred format
    PDF of Alphabet of Wrongdoing 108 page full color libretto (emailed to you within three days of purchase)
    Relentlessly good vibes

    ***PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR EMAIL AND MAILING ADDRESS WHEN YOU ORDER SO WE CAN SEND YOU THE LINK TO THE DIGITAL LIBRETTO AND THE POSTCARD***


    This companion 108 page full-color ebook is a libretto, a roadmap to follow in sequence while listening to the album, or you can turn to any page, regarding each facet you encounter as a koan that can hopefully illuminate the more esoteric aspects of this work. This debut collection of poems and essays asks, Can we transmute a world’s weight of unforgivable acts, an Alphabet of Wrongdoing? Both the album and the book investigate communal gestures of forgiveness - attempts to "Restore dignity to existence through music…" (poet Alan Felsenthal)

    Designers Brankica Harvey and Ken Deegan took an artful dive into the realm of typography to reveal the alphabet to us anew. The book also features stills from a video for All Our Departed, directed by Johnny Spence, filmed by Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien, choreographed by Erin Poole, and performed by Erin Poole, Eric Cheng, and Daniela Gesundheit.

    *You may also apply this purchase as a credit towards the double LP box set and hardcover book which will be out in 2021.

    10% of proceeds will go to The Loveland Foundation. No one turned away for lack of funds. Send an email to hello@alphabetofwrongdoing.com for more information.

    Excerpt from Alphabet of Wrongdoing Digital Libretto:

    We have un-vowed, we have pounded our hearts open, we have prostrated ourselves on forest floors, pine needles pressing into our bellies, and we have fissured our hardened shells all to see if there is some shining, iridescent yolk of incorruptibility inside of us. From that place, where the shards of who we once were somehow fertilize the soil around us, a date palm begins to grow in rapid time-lapse. The summation of brokenness feeds the date palm, moves up its proud, upright trunk as sap, moves into its branches, first as blossoms and then as sweet endless fruit. Just glimpsing the palm sway we feel more whole, more alive: “fresh and full of sap.” This perpetual transmutation is justice.



    Artwork, typography, and layout by Brankica Harvey and Ken Deegan
    Cover photograph by Dawn Garcia
    Edited by Kristen Bulger (English) and Dana Reginiano (Hebrew)
    Fonts Flecha and Grifo designed by Rui Abreu of R-Typography
    Booklet photographs by Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien
    The images are stills from a video for All Our Departed, directed by Johnny Spence, choreographed by Erin Poole, featuring Erin Poole, Daniela Gesundheit and Eric Cheng

    Includes unlimited streaming of Alphabet of Wrongdoing via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.     ... more
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  • Streaming + Download

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  • Buy the Full Digital Album

about

Psalm of David / Mizmor L’David מזמור לדוד

HIGHLIGHTS: Dan Misha Goldman's psych-death-guitar. "Who is the life of life …"

DESCRIPTION:

Psalm 23, or “Psalm of David,” is often sung graveside at Jewish funerals. Imagery of abundance permeates the text — “He restores my soul … goodness and mercy will pursue me.” There is an incongruence in hearing mourners sing this psalm of praise and thanksgiving as they are moored to the epicenter of their grief. I imagine that they are almost singing it through gritted teeth — to sing the words “my cup overflows” when the heart is scorchingly hollowed out by sorrow seems to be a suggestive inversion. The traditional melody of the psalm similarly lulls — it is hypnotic and optimistic and belies the anguish of the context.

This arrangement starts out very controlled and builds to a grief-stricken plead with death. Certain parts of the arrangement (the voices, the guitars) maintain a fidelity to appearances, insisting that all is well, while other characters (the bass saxophone) wail in bereavement. This psalm seems to infer that death is certain, life is tenuous, and it is the responsibility of the bereaved to stay alert enough to face the sacred, liminal chasms that profound loss presents to us.

lyrics

מִזְמור לְדָוִד,
יְהוָה רֹעִי לֹא אֶחְסָר.
בִּנְאוֹת דֶשֶׁא יֵרְבִּיצֵנִי,
עַל-מֵי מְנֻחוֹת
יְנַהֲלֵנִי.
נַפְשִׁי יְשׁוֹבֵב, יַנְחֵנִי
בְמַעְגְלֵי-צֶדֶק לְמֵעֵן
שְׁמוֹ.
גַם כִּי-אֵלֵךְ בְּגֵיא
צַלְמָוֶת לֹא-אִירָא רָע
כִּי-אַתָּה עִמָדִי, שִׁבְטְךָ
וּמִשְׁעַנְתֶּךָ הֵמָה
יְנַחֲמֻנִי.
תַּעֲרֹךְ לְפָנַי
שֻׁלְחָן נֶגֶד צֹרְרָי,
דִשַנְתָּ בַשֶמֶן
רֹאשִי כּוֹסִי רְוָיָה.
אַךְ, טוֹב וָחֶסֶד
יִרְדְפוּנִי כָּל-יְמֵי חַיָי,
וְשַׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית-יְהוָה
לְאֹרֶךְ יָמִים.


A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures:
He leads me beside the still waters.
He restores my soul:
He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of Death,
I will fear no evil: for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies:
You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy will pursue me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Adapted from 1917 Jewish Publication Society Translation

credits

from Alphabet of Wrongdoing, released September 22, 2020
Alphabet of Wrongdoing 

by Daniela Gesundheit

18 tracks, run time 47:14 

Produced by Daniela Gesundheit and Dan Misha Goldman

Performed by 
Daniela Gesundheit voice, percussion
Dan Misha Goldman nylon string and electric guitars, synth, clavinet
Johnny Spence synth, piano, percussion
Basia Bulat autoharp
Sarah Pagé harp 
Evan Cartwright percussion
Alex Lukashevsky voice, percussion
Sari Lightman voice
Romy Lightman voice
Jason Sharp bass and baritone saxophones
with string arrangements by Owen Pallett performed by the Macedonian Symphonic Orchestra (Oleg Kondratenko, conductor)

The melodies and texts herein are traditional, though the vocal embellishments and ornamentation are original. Many of the selections on this album adhere to a form of a refrain that has a set, congregational melody, and that alternates with verses that are improvised within the nusach or mode of the piece. The verses in these pieces are improvised. 

The instrumental arrangements and production are original. Many of the pieces were re-harmonized by Dan Misha Goldman. Track twelve, Mi Chamocha, features a melody written by Rabbi Hanna Tiferet Siegel.  www.HannaTiferet.com

Mixed by Steve Kaye at Sunking Studios in Los Angeles (Kol Nidre mixed by Dan Misha Goldman) 

Recorded by Dan Misha Goldman in Montréal, Leon Taheny at Boombox studio in Toronto, Nicolas 
Pétrowski at Mixart in Montréal, and Daniela Gesundheit in Los Angeles 

Mastered by David Travers-Smith at found.sound

Artwork, typography, and layout by Brankica Harvey and Ken Deegan

Fonts Flecha and Grifo designed by Rui Abreu of R-Typography

Cover photograph by Dawn Garcia

Booklet photographs by Caitlin Woelfle-O’Brien. The images are stills from a video for All Our Departed, directed by Johnny Spence, choreographed by Erin Poole, featuring Erin Poole and Eric Cheng.

LP packaging printed at Precision Record Pressing in Burlington, ON Canada. Book printed at Conti Tipocolor in Calenzano, Italy.

All included Hebrew texts are traditional, and edited by Dana Reginiano; all English translations and English translation excerpts are by Rabbi Richard N. Levy z”l, from his volume of High Holiday liturgy, On Wings of Awe, courtesy of B’nai Brith Hillel Foundations. All other English passages are by Daniela Gesundheit, edited by Kristen Bulger.

This album was recorded on the traditional territories of Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat people, and on the unceded lands of The Kanien’kehá:ka Nation and the Gabrielino/Tongva people. 

Alphabet of Wrongdoing was recorded with the assistance of a Canada Council for the Arts Concept to Realization Grant. 

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Daniela Gesundheit Los Angeles, California

@alphabetofwrongdoing

Daniela Gesundheit is a vocalist, composer, and cantor who lives in LA and haunts Toronto. As Snowblink, Gesundheit writes non-denominational devotional pop music and has released three critically acclaimed albums.

"Daniela’s voice is like clear glass that she frames a kind of playful, velvet privacy with. The sounds are sparse but so rich and carefully wild." Leslie Feist ... more

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