Anyone into “Jewish” music runs into Tzadik’s Radical Jewish Culture label at one point or another. For me, my first encounter was Jamie Saft’s horrifying industrial document Breadcrumb Sins (my parents bought it for me because of the word ‘Jewish’ on the cover). Since then I’ve been obsessed with everything from Jewlia Eisenberg’s Charming Hostess, to Ayelet Rose Gottlieb’s brilliant label debut last year. Recently (for me, I was just tipped off to it), John Zorn updated the Tzadik webpage with a long explication of his views on Radical Jewish Culture.

The series is an ongoing project. A challenge posed to adventurous musical thinkers. What is jewish music? What is its future? If asked to make a contribution to jewish culture, what would you do? Can jewish music exist without a connection to klezmer, cantorial or yiddish theatre? All of the cds on the tzadik RJC series address these issues through the vision and imagination of individual musical minds.