[Cover photo credit to Dmitry Rozin]
Grammy-winning Yiddish band The Klezmatics have announced their new album, We Were Made For These Times, due out May 1, 2026 via Shamus Records, the label arm of TRO Essex Music Group. Acting as their “40th-anniversary statement” and Produced by Danny Blume, the project is a “cross-cultural collaboration rooted in protest, resilience, spiritual endurance, and radical joy.”
It weaves together Jewish, Black Gospel, Latin American, Crimean Tatar, and Avant-Jazz musical traditions. They feel that “in times of rising nationalism, war, and cultural division across the world,” this album forms an “important musical language of solidarity.”
Founding member and trumpeter Frank London says:
‘We Were Made For These Times’ is arguably the highlight of The Klezmatics’ rich and vibrant 40 year history. It ties together our passion for singing songs to make the world a better place with our love of collaborating with different artists. This is quintessential Klezmatics: social justice Yiddish music, rooted in our history, in three languages, with a universal message. It is an inspirational, radically positive statement in these difficult times.
To accompany the announcement, The Klezmatics have shared the lead single + video, “Un Du Akerst” (a worker’s anthem whose title translates to “And You Plow”) featuring La Manga & Lavender Light Gospel Choir. With words by Jewish political and cultural philosopher Chaim Zhitlowsky inspired by a poem from 19th-century German revolutionary Georg Herwegh, the track is a Yiddish workers protest anthem. It features a traditional klezmer sound, but is also cross-cultural via the help of La Manga and Lavender Light Gospel Choir.
The video, filmed in the studio as the song was recorded, “captures the united and collectivist energy” created by The Klezmatics, La Manga, and Lavender Light Gospel Choir.
Joining The Klezmatics on the album are Argentine vocalist Sofía Rei, Gospel artist Joshua Nelson, Lavender Light Gospel Choir, Crimean Tatar guitarist Enver İzmaylov, Jazz artists William Parker and James Brandon Lewis, Janis Siegel of The Manhattan Transfer, and the Colombian percussion collective La Manga.
The visual language of the album is “integral to the project.” The album artwork adopts a bold protest-poster aesthetic inspired by hand-carved linocuts, “centered around symbolic hand gestures — reaching, resisting, blessing, building.” Each single extends this visual vocabulary.
Emerging from New York City’s East Village in 1986, The Klezmatics fused Yiddish song with Punk energy, Gospel intensity, Jazz improvisation, and global rhythms.
We Were Made For These Times Tracklist:
1. Un Du Akerst feat. La Manga & Lavender Light Gospel Choir
2. Plane Wreck at Los Gatos (Deportee) feat. Sofia Rei
3. We Were Made For These Times feat. Joshua Nelson & Lavender Light Gospel Choir
4. Crimean Freylekhs feat. Enver Izmaylov
5. Ikh Ken Nit Zogn Vitsn feat. Janis Siegel
6. Forty Year Freylekhs
7. Kegn Gold Fun Zun / Tatar Dance feat. Enver Izmaylov
8. Payklers Tants (Drummer’s Dance)
9. Lashinke Vaysinke feat. Enver İzmaylov
10. Elegy for the Innocents feat. James Brandon Lewis & William Parker
11. I Am Willing feat. Joshua Nelson & Lavender Light Gospel Choir
12. Di Tsukunft (El Futuro) feat. La Manga
