Oi Va Voi release new song for diaspora Jews who ‘feel unheard’

Breslaw said: “We were shut down in our own country and told we couldn't play music. It was a very hurtful experience, and we were bruised and battered. We realised the first thing we had to do was make new music that represented who we are. We had to go back to our roots.”

The song, he said, turned out to be themed on their roots in both its lyrics and music, and “felt a really natural and important thing” to record. The track features a violin, a clarinet and a trumpet carrying the klezmer melody, blended with Steve Levi-Kallin’s cantorial vocals in Hebrew.

Breslaw went on: “Sometimes the Jewish element of what we do is a lot more subtle. On this song, we turned the dial right up on who Oi Va Voi are – our Jewish heritage. We cranked it up because it felt like what we needed to do at this time. It's loud and proud. It's celebrating everything we've ever stood for as a band.”

And Levi-Kallin said the gig cancellations had forced the band to “look back” at themselves and ask, “who are we?”

“It put the spotlight on us in a way that I've never felt in this country. We’re a band that plays music. We want to claim that and be proud of what we're doing, because we've done it for so long, and we're not about to throw it away by abandoning it.”

Breslaw added: “There was real soul-searching after that experience, about who we are, what we represent. As angry as we are about what happened, it had to be a positive, joyful celebration of the music we make in the culture we come from.

"That’s what the song represents for us. We gave ourselves enough time to go back to our basic principles and not be reactionary to bullies or gaslighters.”

The band returned to the studio to record the song just after Rosh Hashanah, a time in the Jewish calendar that Levi-Kallin pointed out is symbolically relevant to the track’s theme, as it is when people are looking to their roots and engaging with their identity. The lyric “there’s nowhere that I will be sheltered from the sound of a note..”, references a shofar, from which a subtle call can be heard in the first verse.

Levi-Kallin saw the inclusion of the shofar as “a sound you hear that goes on and on and is calling you back to your identity”.

He continued: “In the diaspora, the impact of everything that's gone on has its effects. We're not in a war zone, but we have, all of a sudden, been confronted by a change in atmosphere, in the way people are talking.”

Steve Levi-Kallin, John Matts, Kalliopi Mitropoulou, Josh Breslaw and David Orchant of Oi Va Voi[Missing Credit]

Breslaw added that the song is “also for Jewish people who feel unheard. We have a platform that lets us make a piece of music that hopefully will give people a bit of strength in the community”.

The attack on Heaton Park Congregation Synagogue Manchester, in which two people were killed on Yom Kippur just days after the band recorded Back To My Roots, made the song even more pertinent.

“It's got even more meaning now. It's all the things that we were worried about and feeling unheard about. We were on the right path with the song that we wanted to make, and the importance of doing that, and not just crawling under a rock because bullies say you need to,” said Breslaw.

The band play Islington Assembly Hall on November 12, but have told the JC it was “not a given” that they would be able to do a London show, and that they were turned away from venues outside of the capital.

Breslaw said: “We had to jump through more hoops than you would expect. We were determined, after those cancellations, to play London, to show we hadn't disappeared and been beaten by that.

“People shouldn't take it for granted that Jewish acts can just get a venue, because that's not the case. We are looking forward to making it a celebration, because this show is a response to being shut down.”

Oi Va Voi play Islington Assembly Hall on November 12