Trilectic is an album to file between Meredith Monk
and Sweet Honey In The Rock. That's some space to occupy, but New Yorker
Jewlia Eisenberg, now based in Oakland, California, covers a lot off stylistic
ground, fronting the a cappella outfit Charming Hostess in a dazzling
display of vocal agility, wit, emotional flexibility, and imaginative
depth. -- The Wire UK
Jewlia Eisenberg’s work is irreverent and ambitious. Charming Hostess
radiates female energy and her singing transforms the spirit. -- The San Francisco Chronicle
Jewlia Eisenberg unleashes music brilliantly conceived and performed…The
sound of these powerful voices coming together is truly uplifting and
even implicitly political. -- San Francisco Bay Guardian
The songs on Jewlia Eisenberg’s album, “Trilectic,”
are blithe and frisky. She sets lyrics about politics, jealousy and pizza
to a world of styles, from klezmer to pygmy-style counterpoint, humanizing
a great thinker while having plenty of fun. -- New York Times
Jewlia Eisenberg’s new record, “Trilectic,” kicks brainiac
ass. -- Village Voice
Eisenberg’s songs are hilarious and touching, and they run the gamut
from hard-edged and powerful to sweet and soulful. -- New Yorker
Charming Hostess is the finest anarchist-feminist-polyphonic-polyrhythmic-polymorphously
perverse-balkan-blue-ish-Jewish-freak-funk-punk band working in America
today. Their live shows are as fabulous and eccentric as their music. -- Los Angeles Weekly
Charming Hostess makes music like no other... Thrown in with lively North
African wedding songs and Eastern European folk songs are originals that
display a proudly feminist, radical-Jewish, pro-sex sensibility. The blend
lets listeners discover whether they can think and dance a the same time. -- The New York Times
Thoroughly delightful...Ethereal melodies shift elegantly
with precise rhythmic accompaniment, and the overall effect encourages
an urge to dance and drink vodka. -- The New Yorker
ARTICLES
/ PRESS LINKS
Reviews & Interviews
BBC's The World - by Benjamin Temchine
"The subject of today's Global Hit is a trio of women who call themselves
"Charming Hostess." The name summons up a particular image --
proper, oh-so-refined, and careful not to ruffle any feathers. That's
not exactly the way you'd describe Charming Hostess. They're sensual,
they're smart, and they're radical... ( listen
read )
The
New Yorker
The Bay Area vocal trio Charming Hostess has a sublime new record, “"Sarajevo
Blues",” that's a joint effort between the bandleader Jewlia
Eisenberg and the Sarajevan exile poet Semezdin Mehmedinovic. It fuses
Mehmedinovic's funny and bitter verse ("Death Is a Job"”
concerns war photographers) and Eisenberg's intricate, pan-ethnic vocal
harmonies, which career from Sufi to Motown to Sephardic.
SF Chronicle- San Francisco- Andrew Gillbert
The brainchild of Jewlia Eisenberg, Charming Hostess has evolved from
an art-rock big band into an all-female vocal trio with a dazzling diverse
palette of influences drawn from the Jewish and African diasporas, with
Andalusian cadences and Pygmy polyphony thrown in. . . the music pulses
with so much life and soul...
New York Observer - by Joseph Hooper
" From Ms. Monk, Ms. Eisenberg inherits a disregard for song conventions
and an ear for the priestessy, other worldly sound of the trained soprano
voice. But whereas Ms. Monk, the good Buddhist, is all about moving beyond
words and ideas to get at some core essence, Ms. Eisenberg can't get enough
of talking and thinking; she's practically drunk with feminism, Jewish
consciousness, left-wing intellectual history...
Boston Phoenix - by Jon Garelick
Jewlia Eisenberg says that when she visited Eastern Europe to document
women’s folk music in Bulgaria and Romania, "I realized I didn’t
want to be an ethnomusicologist; I wanted to be a rock star." In
fact, this vocalist and composer became a bit of both by founding Charming
Hostess...
"At the 23rd annual Festival International de Musique Actuelle, Charming
Hostess did exactly what their name implies. . . (
read more ) -- Montreal Gazette covers Charming Hostess
at the Festival of New Music in Victo.
Tucson Weekly - by Gene Armstrong
Straight outta Oakland, the three brainy, sexy and musically adventurous
women who comprise the band Charming Hostess want us to feel welcome in
their universe. Chilling harmonies, sensual rhythms and radical politics
orbit the group's center, which...
Expose
- by Mike Grimes
Cover story on the "Charming
Hostess Tale" from "Eat" to "Sarajevo Blues"
and "Punch" it's all laid out in "Sarajevo Punch".
As Mike writes "Many songs interlace intricate and complex 3-part
vocal harmonies often related to each other in ways that would surely
shock your average college harmony-voicing instructor. The tunes are at
times soothing and at times downright frightening." A must-read for
the Charming Hostess history buff. Also in same Expose issue, a
review of "Punch" by Mike Grimes: From whispery quiet to
in-your-face loud, the lyrics and music both have a wide dynamic range.
With elements of klezmer, Balkan,punk rock, country, and more in their
music, Charming Hostess doesn't really sound like anyone else. "Punch"
kicks.
New York Press - by Molly Sheridan
Eisenberg pushes harder, musically and intellectually...her reading of
the Bosnian poet Semezdin Mehmedinovic's portrayal of life during wartime
in Sarajevo Blues became the focus of Charming Hostess's most recent release
...
The Forward - by Seth Rogovoy
On Charming Hostess's new recording, "Sarajevo Blues," a capella girl-group
harmonies blend with hip-hop beat-box techniques and Bosnian war poetry...
a dizzying cosmopolitanism, an engagement with contemporary culture and
politics, and indisputably Jewish outlooks and melodies...
Downtown
Music Gallery - New York - Red Pocket's Thick
Second superb Tzadik release from that fabulous & feisty Charming
Hostess singer/composer/bassist Jewlia Eisenberg with 2 Foot Yard's cello
wonder Marika Hughes also singing and Nels Cline's Singers drum wiz Scott
Amendola on percussion and electronics. Both listening to Charming Hostess
and Jewlia's 'Trilectic' (Tzadik) releases on cd and in concert have shown
us just how immensely talented and strangely charming Jewlia and her friends
can be. Her new trio Red Pocket once again an infectious blend of wickedly
incisive and hilarious lyrics...
Boston Phoenix - by Douglas Wolk
"Jewlia Eisenberg is a straight-up nerd and proud of it. The heart of
her recent Trilectic (Tzadik) is the kickiest a cappella song cycle ever
written about early-20th-century radical Marxist philosophers. It had
its origin on, of course, a bookshelf. "I was browsing through a
friend's library," she recalls...
Klezmer Shack - Sarajevo Blues
If Zap Mama included Jewish and Balkan musical influences in their repertoire
they'd probably sound almost as good as Charming Hostess. But that would
just be the sound. Try to imagine Zap Mama's material if their song selection
criteria included a desire to match voice to unconventional song texts
to convey poetry and prose to the ear. Sounds intellectual and intimidating,
especially when you consider...
Klezmer Shack - Trilectic
"Trilectic is an amazing and interesting album. I was already a fan of
Eisenberg's work in the Charming
Hostess, but here she takes vocal traditions and history and weaves
something uniquely worth listening to. Imagine...
Speaking Freely - KQED interview
"A transplanted New Yorker,
Jewlia Eisenberg and her band Charming Hostess have captured the attention...
Salon Review - by Douglas Wolk
" You couldn't invent a band more conceptually busy than the Oakland,
Calif., group Charming Hostess if you tried. The short version is...
East Bay Express - by Katy St. Clair
"Now John Zorn's label, Tzadik,
has released Eisenberg's solo effort, Trilectic, as part of its Radical
Jewish Culture series. The record is a sweeping romp through many genres:
doo-wop, prison work songs, Ituri Pygmy chants, and a variety of female
vocal traditions...
Boston Herald - by Bob Young
"It's not every band that inspires its audience to shout out for
songs about esoteric political theories or Eastern European poetry. But
not every band is like Charming Hostess . . .
Bosnian Weekly "Dani"
Review of Sarajevo Blues by Eldin Hadzovic and article by Semezdin Mehmedinovic.
Translated into English by Sanja.
The Wire - by Julian Cowley
"Trilectic" is an album to file between Meredith Monk and Sweet
Honey In The Rock. That's some space to occupy, but New Yorker
Jewlia Eisenberg, now based in Oakland, California, covers a lot off stylistic
ground, fronting the a cappella outfit Charming Hostess in a dazzling
display of vocal agility, wit, emotional flexibility, and...
The Prague Post - by Kristina Alda
The band, which released a new album this year titled
Sarajevo Blues, incorporates Jewish, African and Balkan musical
influences, using vocals along with vocal percussion. Eisenberg, who has
studied musical ethnology and traveled extensively throughout Eastern
and Central Europe, says she's really looking forward to visiting Boskovice.
"I'm inspired and moved by the fact that Jewish cultural preservation
in Boskovice was sustained by both Jewish and non-Jewish people"...
HA-ARETZ - by Gidi Avivi
"Meet Jewlia Eisenberg, the leader of the Charming Hostess band,
and a unique creative presence in the American- and world- music community.
It's hard to compete with her eay ability to blend so many musical influences
into a personal style...
Musica Jazz - by Alessandro Achilli
"Anche in «Sarajevo Blues» la musica è costruita
su poesie, benché le squisite armonie vocali delle Charming Hostess
siano così trascinanti che potrebbero tranquillamente fare a meno
della parola...