Man in a Hat

The Klezmatics' "Man in a Hat" arrives with the raw energy of a downtown New York loft concert in the early 1990s, when this band was recharging klezmer with punk attitude and political consciousness. The production has intentional grit — violin and clarinet up front, rhythm section with muscle, everything recorded to feel live and slightly dangerous. The melody has the angular, minor-key quality of traditional dance music, but the performance is charged with something confrontational. The Klezmatics were always as much about the present as the past — their klezmer was explicitly queer, explicitly left-wing, explicitly in dialogue with the world that existed outside the concert hall. "Man in a Hat" channels that energy: a piece that honors tradition while insisting tradition must breathe contemporary air. Best heard loud, in company.