Welcome to a semi-regular column by JDub Records founder Aaron Bisman. Since he spends his days immersed in new Jewish music, we asked him what he listens to on his time off.

"American Boy" – Estelle
Yes, she’s another female rapper/singer from London. But this one started on her own label, got herself signed to John Legend’s label, and convinced Kanye to drop a verse on this song. (Will.I.Am produced it, but don’t hold that against her.) It’s a slick, R&B-influenced dance track about how excited she is to check out our country and our boys—perfect dance-floor fodder. Estelle may not get as much TV placement as Amy Wino, but her album just dropped, she’s touring in the states right now, and she is definitely worth your attention.

Worthy of the hype: Vampire WeekendVampire Weekend – Vampire Weekend
How can I not include a VW song? This album is on constant replay in the JDub office, by all four members of the NYC staff. I’m not even sure what to say about the band that hasn’t already been said by bloggers watching their incredibly rapid ascent from hipster darlings to Saturday Night Live musical act. "Upper West Side Soweto” seems asinine, but it’s a fairly accurate description of their sound. Lyrically stuck in college, aurally stuck between Paul Simon and the Strokes, this album is catchy as hell. And in today’s rough and tumble times, it’s nice to have something that’s just so damn fun.

An Evening with Jo Amar in Old Jerusalem – Jo Amar
Early on with JDub, I accepted that my core skills were more in the business than in making the music itself, but I still love to DJ and maintain dreams of future careers in ethnomusicology and production. So to this day I still collect vinyl from stoop sales and old relatives, mostly 70s funk & soul, hip-hop, and anything Jewish.

My dad found this record in his synagogue in Scottsdale. According to the record jacket, Jo became a Cantor in Morocco at age 14 and in 1965 sold out Carnegie Hall in his first US appearance. This recording, however, is nothing traditional. It’s “the newest Oriental hits.” Often records like this completely Westernize the music with cheesy orchestral arrangements, but not this one. Jo sometimes has an organ in the mix, but it’s not overly intrusive and gives it the slightest hint of modern flavor (and psychedelia).

The joke never gets old: Flight of the Conchords"Robots (live)" – Flight of the Conchords
FoC are a comic-folk duo from New Zealand. Before their show even hit the states these guys were superstars here after a ridiculous viral build few bands are ever lucky enough to benefit from. Some comedy albums run dry after one or two listens, but we play this song in the office a few times a week, and I always, always get a kick out of it.

"Burying Luck" – Minus the Bear
This band is from Seattle, and on a great label called Suicide Squeeze. Full disclosure: The label prez DJ’d our Hanukkah bash this year as DJ Half a Shekel. She passed us their newish CD (it came out in August, but their big tour is happening now leading up to Bonnaroo), which is really a solid work of post-grunge rock. Lead singer Jake Snider’s voice reminds me, almost painfully, of Glen Phillips from Toad the Wet Sprocket. I’m not sure if that’s a complement or an insult, but that sense of the familiar took me by the hand into the album.

Previously: Purim Crunk, Yeasayer

Welcome to a semi-regular column by JDub Records founder Aaron Bisman. Since he spends his days immersed in new Jewish music, we asked him what he listens to on his time off.

She's so unusual: Kaki King"Pull Me Out Alive" – Kaki King
Kaki King was good friends with one of my roommates senior year of college, so she hung around our place sometimes. With the exception of a baal tshuva and a former frummie from Monsey, my other Alphabet City roommates were all musicians, and being surrounded by artists was by turns inspiring, maddening, and fun as hell. Kaki had a very unique air about her—quiet but obviously passionate. Mellow in conversation but aggressive on her guitar. We went to a few of her early shows, where she stood alone onstage using her guitar as a drum when she wasn’t fingerpicking the hell out it. It wasn't what I expected to see (or like) in a New York club, but she was totally captivating.

In the past year, Kaki's career has taken off. Sean Penn asked her to do music for Into the Wild and she worked with the Foo Fighters on their last album. She’s no longer a mute instrumentalist—last week, she put out Dreaming Of Revenge. You MUST watch this video. Yes, the light effect is similar to those annoying Sprint commercials. But this video was made from 5,000 still photographs. And the song has that perfect poppy edge while staying rooted in Kaki’s alternative/indie base. Love it.

"Cocaine" – Sly & the Revolutionaries & Jah Thomas Dreux
Dub is essentially reggae with the delay effects turned up and the vocals turned down—chill instrumental music. Adam Mansbach, the author of The End of the Jews, turned me onto this track. Adam’s book is about a multigenerational family of Jewish artists, including stoned bar mitzvah DJs and graffiti-bombing grandfathers When he made a “playlist” for the book, he included this and described it as solid music to write to. So I took his advice, bought it on iTunes, and put it on as I started to write this. I think it's a new essential in my collection.

"Big Mistake" – Tim Fite
Mark my words, Tim Fite is the new Beck. He's steeped in blues, country, and the hip hop art of sampling, but has a personality (and stage show) all his own. I bummed a ride with Tim to Bonnaroo last year in a van where we were only allowed to listen to books on tape and ‘80s hip also on tape—and we had to stop in the mountains of Tennessee to check out a gourd stand (where we convinced his brother, Greg Fite, to buy a hand-made raccoon-skin hat). Tim plays acoustic guitar onstage, and Greg runs sampler and projections, which often show Tim backing himself up on other instruments, and other times feature Tim’s illustrations and animations. Have I made the “personality all his own” point well enough yet?

This song is from his upcoming album, “Fair Ain’t Fair.” It’s a great leap forward in Tim's songwriting and style, but also a perfect introduction to his music: Catchy, melodic, easy to sing along with, but still with the bleeps and blips and weird moments I love him for. You can hear it here.

Rays of sunshine: DeVotchKa"Transliterator" – DeVotchKa
Heard this on Woxy.com, a great online radio station I recently got into. DeVotchKa waves the flag of “Gypsy rock” (the camp inhabited by Gogol Bordello, Balkan Beat Box, Slavic Soul Party, Golem, etc), which I've never fully understood. Using an accordion is great, but it doesn’t make the music Gypsy (or Roma). I hear more David Byrne that Eugene Hutz.

This track is from DeVotchKa’s album, which came out this week. It's also the second song in today's list from Anti Records, which I guess makes me an Anti fan. I love the keyboard riff, the delicate sound of the music, the strings – I can almost imagine this being used in an extended cut of a van-chasing scene in Little Miss Sunshine (which they scored).

"Purim crunk"(from the Emory Hillel)
Thursday night is Purim, so we can’t miss the only opportunity I’ll have to showcase my favorite and only Purim Crunk song, called, appropriately, “Purim Crunk.” It was commissioned by Emory University's Hillel last year. I’m pretty sure the artists weren’t Jews, which makes their accurate retelling of the Purim story all the more impressive. Please download this song and play it loud and proud at your Masquerade balls this weekend.

Don’t have a Purim plan? JDub has five, in NY, Boston, Cleveland, SF, & LA and we’d love to see you at one of them.

Previously: Yeasayer and more

Welcome to a new semi-regular column by JDub Records founder Aaron Bisman. Since he spends his days immersed in new Jewish music,we asked him what he listens to on his time off. The answer: More Jewish music, plus some funk and indie rock.

What I’m listening to:

Bonnaroo, here we come: The hippie hipsters of Yeasayer"Wait for the Summer" – Yeasayer
I’m not as up on music as I’d like to be—probably not up enough to qualify as a true hipster. So maybe I’m late to jump on this bandwagon, but after spotting Yeasayer on many a “Best of 2007” list, I caught the young Brooklyn ensemble live at Bowery Ballroom and became an instant fan. They remind me of many things—Talking Heads, Toubab Krewe, 70s classic rock—without sounding like any of them. They do make me think “indie” and “alternative” might be turning into new euphemisms for “jam band,” but hey, I like the 2 AM set at Bonnaroo.

"P’sach Lanu Sha’ar (Open the Gates for Us)" – The Sway Machinery
Jeremiah Lockwood is a member of Balkan Beat Box and a recipient of the Six Points Fellowship for Emerging Jewish Artists. This unreleased recording is part of his fellowship project, Hidden Melodies Revealed. Cantorial solos, Afro-pop horn lines, and Jeremiah’s obsession with the blues meld into a sound that’s genuinely unlike any other on the scene today—Jewish or otherwise. Jeremiah performs like a man possessed. His shows, which feature members of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Antibalas, and the Arcade Fire, are exciting and frightening all at once. How else would you want your Rosh Hashanah liturgy? I can’t wait for the full record.

"House by the Sea" – Iron & Wine
I thought Iron & Wine was a singer-songwriter, but after playing his new album, The Shepherd’s Dog, on repeat, I’m not so sure. He transcends the narrow boundaries of such genre classifications with songs like “House by the Sea," which begins with a swell of sounds that is mostly (entirely?) acoustic but could just as easily be an electronica intro to a Thievery Corporation song. A minute in, it turns into a beautifully melodic masterpiece. He doesn’t lose any of the textures but continues to build them up, keeping me interested in the story and the sound, and leaving me feeling like I want to live in this lush aesthetic.

No cough syrup necessary: Kid Cudi"Day 'N’ Nite" – Kid Cudi
This is my new jam, but I don’t know how to pronounce his name. (Cutie? Cuddy like what a cow chews?) Regardless, the newest signing to Fool’s Gold (the label from A-Trak, the turntable wiz who also happens to be Kanye’s DJ and a Polish-Canadian-Jew), turns out a slick electro backpacker banger. The half-time beat reminds me of a chopped and screwed remix, except this song is dance-floor–worthy without the two bottles of cough syrup.

"Kartzioy (Leeches)" – Sagol 59
I’ve known Sagol, the Godfather of Israeli hip hop, since 2000, when I met him performing at the now defunct Syndrome in Jerusalem. It was one of the first hip-hop shows in Israel, a low-key affair with Sha’anan Street of Hadag Nachash, a few hooting hippies, and a sax player who claimed to have been in one of Miles Davis’ bands. He’s come a long way since those days of covering NWA in Hebrew.

Sagol’s newest album, Make Room, which will be coming out on JDub later this spring, was produced by a 17-year-old prodigy named Johnny HaKattan (little Johnny). It brings his lyrical assault into a brighter, poppier palette of sounds that has challenged Sagol to update his flow and his lyrics. The first five times I heard the chorus to this song, I thought it was some African dialect; the distorted, high-pitched vocals blend together into an almost indistinguishable sound, and my Hebrew’s not that great. In reality, he’s telling the story of the constantly downtrodden—what Israelis call “a fryer.” (Basically, a sucker. If you’re Israeli, you probably live in fear of being classified as one because everyone’s trying to screw you.)

Blow Your Head – Fred Wesley & The JBs
Fred Wesley has played trombone with Parliament, with Bootsy Collins, and, most famously, in the JB’s (that would be James Brown’s band, both with and without the Godfather of Soul). I got this track on a cheesy-looking compilation from 1988 called “James Brown’s Funky People pt. 2.” Whenever I need a little pick-me-up in the office, I turn this on. It opens with a wicked synth line, and then the drums come in and you can see the Funky People getting down. I either want to dance with them or sample this in a hip hop beat (which I’m sure has already been done to death).

Guess what Fred’s newest project is? Playing with JDub’s own Socalled – you can hear him on a track from Ghettoblaster called “(These are the) Good Old Days.”