Today’s track premiere comes from Kyle Morgan and Tamar Korn. Tamar Korn was born in southern California but for the past quarter-century has been a regular on the New York City music scene, and a regular performer at the Brooklyn Folk Fest. She’s well know for singing early jazz as roots music and also performs Yiddish songs. Kyle Morgan grew up in an evangelical Christian church in central Pennsylvania, and he moved to NYC because of Jalopy Theatre (a multi-faceted arts space showcasing evolving folk and traditional music and art from New York City), first experiencing the scene via the Brooklyn Folk Fest.
Tamar Korn told Americana UK a little about why the duo chose to record this song, saying: “Leonard Cohen’s “Anthem” is more prescient than ever, when we’re all in need of whatever light can be found in our “cracked” world. It is a song-as-truth salve, calling out painfully present cycles of history, while calling us all in now to play our hearts out as the primary instrument of our humanity. ‘Anthem’ was the last song we tracked during a two-day recording session at Jalopy Theatre in Brooklyn, NY. The arrangement developed organically playing it live around the city these past few years. We turned Cohen’s slow 6/8 into a bouncy 4/4 and added harmony.
This is a universal call to arms for Love as our inevitable, centrally-animating expression of humanity. Perhaps our primary job as people is to feel, and to act (and think) transparently from our most earnest, holistic care. Witnessing such vulnerability may yet illuminate our most beautiful collective potentials. ”
