Klezmatics legend London enlists the likes of Manu Narayan, Lorin Slamberg and They Might Be Giants on his latest gem, twenty one of his songs, all with lyrics by Glen Berger, which were used as the original music for Alexandra Aron?s adaptation of the play by Yiddish writer I.L. Peretz.

As you might expect, these tracks are small wonders, like most Klezmer music, riveting and ultimately joyful mashes of the folk traditional with the sounds and experiences of the city, tragedy with hope, and the gritty with the holy.

Songs like ?What is Man?s Worth,? ?I?ll Make Such Wonders? juggle gritty realism with a sense of the historic. Even sad subject matter as in ?Call It Disappointing? and ?Canon of The Dead? breathe with life and a moving defiance of tragedy that is the hallmark of much Yiddish literature, in addition to Klemzer music. There are other songs, such as ?Is There Room on Earth?? and ?The Ten Faces of G-d? where the strength and hope of simply being human, when revealed in the daily yet cosmic decisions we all make, make us seem superhuman. What Klezmer, and Lincoln in particular, reminds us, is that hope in the midst of suffering is not only defiance, but it is what separates us from apes. 8/10 -- Mike Wood (9 May, 2007)