By all counts, the music video for “Als Ding hot a Soff, nur baym Wursht senen zway,” Joe Fleisch’s Yiddish cover of the ’80s German New Wave hit “Alles hat ein Ende, nur die Wurst hat zwei” (“Everything Has an End, Only the Sausage Has Two”) is bizarre. Shot in black and white in an evocative nod to the aesthetics of James Bond, the video―a collaboration with producer Ori Toledano and director Guy J. Bolandi―alternates between shots of Fleisch singing eerily and shots of naked, androgynous women (in a secluded forest!) who have the song’s lyrics projected or painted on their bodies.

For the casual viewer who stumbles upon Fleisch’s erotic odyssey, some context would be helpful. Joe Fleisch is actually the pseudonym of 54-year-old German author and entrepreneur Jossi Reich, whose other musical endeavor, the Tel Aviv-based band the Jewish Monkeys, is likewise unorthodox. While the band’s name might call to mind the cheerful pop vibe of the Monkees, Reich’s group performs a “distinctive mishmash of rock, klezmer, funk, and Balkan music, sung in English, Spanish, Esperanto and Yiddish,” in the words of Tablet contributor Dana Kessler. From a raunchy ode to Romania to a multicultural mashup (“The Banana Boat Song” meets “Hava Nagila,” with some politics thrown in for good measure), nothing, it seems, is musically off limits.

“It’s a personality split. It’s a complete other thing,” Reich told Jewcy, delineating his musical personae. “Jewish Monkeys is a punk rock band and very satirical and very funny and is kind of an orchestra with eight people.”

For Bolandi, who has directed projects for major TV networks like Nickelodeon and Comedy Central, “Als Ding hot a Soff” was more personal than his commercial work. “The entire concept of the video was about translation,”  said Bolandi, 35, referring not only to linguistic translation, but translating high-tech concepts―computerized designs typify the New Wave ethos―into lo-fi iterations. “In a way, this is a reference to technology, actually painting on the bodies.”

Reich’s interest in the song stems from his obsession with German New Wave music growing up, such as the theatrical stylings of Nina Hagen and the political incorrectness of Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft (German-American Friendship). “The music was absolutely German, very monotonous,” he said.

In “Als Ding hot a Soff,” Toledano, whom Bolandi introduced to Reich, provides the sonic heart of the project: klezmer clarient and computerized music samples. Coming from a musical household (he’s the son of Israeli singer and Eurovision contestant Avi Toledano), his prowess is no surprise. Plus, as the founder of Snowstar, a production company, it’s his job to tell stories by marrying visual media and music.

“I do Americana, Blues. I don’t have one genre,” said Toledano, 32. “I could work on a wide range of different genres and be something else every day and work with as many people as possible on different productions.”

Even if everything does have an end (or two, for sausages), let’s hope this creative partnership’s is far in the distance.

Experience the delightful weirdness that is the music video below:

Image via YouTube.

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Jewcy is excited to premiere this video, starring special guest, Broadway star and musician Lauren Molina, and featuring lines like, “Seders make my dough rise” (Greta Gertler Gold was the writer and composer).

Does the video contain a spanking with leeks a la Sephardic “Dayenu” customs? Is there an attempt to eat a matzah ball with chained-up arms? Are there Maxwell House haggadot held seductively in front of breasts? You bet there are.

You can buy the song here, so you can learn it in time for your seder and serenade your bubbe over the salad course.

If you’re hungry for more Passover ditties, the Universal Thump is also hosting The Seder-Songwriter Project, an evening at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan on May 1st featuring Jewish and gentile performers alike doing original numbers inspired by the holiday. It’ll be a post-Passover “musical seder.”

In the meantime, get your sexy Pesach fix below:

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Indie ‘It Girl’ band Haim have a new music video, and it is everything charmantes and adorably early-90s!

If you’re not not familiar with the Californian trio—consisting of twenty-something sisters Este, Danielle, and Alana Haim—check out our Q&A from May last year. Their “sanguine yet dreamy sound” is a mix of rock, folk, and retro synthpop: it’s fun and catchy, but not without depth—the sort of layered pop that reveals its cleverness, maturity (and ever-so-subtle irony) on repeated listens.

Anyway! Here’s the video for “If I Could Change Your Mind,” one of the tracks from their 2013 debut album, Days Are Gone.

Writes Moze Halperin for Flavorpill:

The choreographer for this very video (Fatima Robinson) is known for her work with the Backstreet Boys and Aaliyah, and it’s fitting that the sisters don’t exactly nail their choreography with the ease of either; it’s always funny seeing indie rockers doing pop-star moves, and Haim seems acutely aware of its unnaturalness. The video is more a self-aware homage, with the sisters wearing their dance moves like polyester Halloween costumes, managing to have enough fun to forget that they’re synthetic.

Enjoy!

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If you’ve got 10 minutes to spare—and you want to spend them super wisely—you should check out Drake’s new video for “Worst Behavior,” off his latest album, Nothing Was the Same. Filmed in Memphis, from where his father hails, the video is meant to paint a wider picture of Drake’s background. Drizzy is more than just T Dot, you know. Vibe reports.

“My family is like two different worlds and I feel like people only acknowledge one half of it,” Drake told VIBE following the Charlotte stop of his Would You Like A Tour? run. “I have a lot of family that I love very deeply [in Memphis]. But if anybody knows anything about the South and how it is, it’s tough to go around people who could use your help and you can’t help everybody. It’s like a guilt or a burden that comes over me, so I hadn’t gone to Memphis in a long time.”

So sit back, relax, and get ready to be a little confused and a lot of entertained. You’ll see the famous Beale Street. You’ll hear jokes about hush puppies the food versus Hush Puppies the shoes. And you’ll fall in love when Drizzy holds a very cute little boy, envisioning a life with him as your husband. Too much? Sort of sorry.

Enjoy, Drake lovers, haters, and all around Drake participators.

Drake ~ Worst Behavior from OctobersVeryOwn on Vimeo.

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