Tel Aviv, Israel-based Indie Folk collective Miqedem has released their third studio LP Eshkona, meaning “I will rest”. It’s the band’s most collaborative and instrumentally diverse album to yet and includes guest appearances from many of the band’s friends in the Israeli World Music scene.
Miqedem (the ancient Hebrew word for “of old” or alternately, “from the east”) is a band with heavy influences from Middle-Eastern and North African music styles, often utilizing microtonal scales, irregular time signatures, and regional instruments.
Miqedem’s music reflects a recent resurgence of interest in regional music within the Israeli music scene, a trend found in artists such as Riff Cohen, Yemen Blues, A-Wa, and many others. Their lyrics draw most heavily from the poetry of the Psalms.
Formed in 2015, the band has toured extensively across North America and Europe and its members come from a mixture of Jewish and Christian backgrounds, however, they maintain a philosophy that people from all religious and non-religious backgrounds can appreciate “the beauty of some of humanity’s most ancient, and most beloved poetic works.”
