The Bashevis Singers release new album "moon's milk"

Fans of Yiddish poetry and music can rejoice in the release of The Bashevis Singers’ brand-new album, Moon’s Milk! This Yiddish indie-folk band is well known to the Bundist community, especially those of us living in Melbourne. 

The Bashevis Singers are a family trio made up of Husky Gawenda, Evie Gawenda and Gideon Preiss, who grew up in the Melbourne Bund community singing and performing in Yiddish. Each successful in their own right, the three joined forces to put their love of Yiddish on vinyl. 

Their latest album, Moon’s Milk, draws on the poetry of Avrom Sutzkever. Unlike many other albums that draw on Sutzkever’s incredibly moving Holocaust and post-Holocaust poetry, this album explores poems from one of his earliest published collections, Valdiks. 

Widely considered one of the greatest modern Yiddish poets, Sutzkever’s career was sparked in Vilna, where he was a member of the famous Yung Vilne, a writers’ and artists’ group. Though certainly not a Bundist, Sutzkever worked alongside key Bundistn, including Herman Kruk in the Paper Brigade, which heroically saved Jewish cultural and historical artefacts in during the khurbn.  Sutzkever also fiercely advocated for the Yiddish language and culture until his final breath. This was particularly challenging in the context of a Yiddish poet living and working in the State of Israel during a period of concerted efforts to remove Yiddish from everyday life in the country. Yet Sutzkever proved time and time again that the Yiddish pen is mightier than the sword. Valdiks, Sutzkever’s second collection of poetry, was published in Vilna in 1940. The collection reflects both an earlier poetic style and the genesis of his lifelong love affair with nature, which would remain a defining feature of his writing. 

Upon reading these poems, the trio were mesmerised. Husky Gawenda notes: 

“We fell in love with these poems. They changed the way we looked at the world. They changed the way we spoke Yiddish. Exuberant, mystical, gorgeous, he reminded us of a Yiddish Wordsworth or Whitman perhaps, in his deep explorations of the natural world, of poetry, and of a flourishing mystical world within himself and all of us. We knew we had to write these songs.” 

The Bashevis Singers embarked on a deep study of the poems, seeking to understand their meaning and beauty while navigating the complex process of bringing them into the world in a new form through music. 

Something that is often lacking in Yiddish recordings is a balance between creating something new and honouring the beauty of the original work. Not so with Moon’s Milk. The band embarked on a significant process of collective and individual exploration of these works. 

Gideon Preiss explains that this process helped them develop an understanding of a young Avrom Sutzkever who was “...filled with longing for transcendence, beauty, and for a mystical union with the natural world around him. That became the wellspring from which these songs emerged and the emotional centre of the record.” 

The Bashevis Singers’ understanding of and respect for Sutzkever, his literary style and his themes are evident in each composition and recording, making this album a pleasure for native Yiddish speakers and beginners alike. 

Moon’s Milk opens with the title track, “Moon’s Milk”, a dreamy siren’s call that gently leads the listener into Sutzkever’s world. The original music reflects the composers’ immersion in the beautiful landscape of his poetry—where nature and love blend together, and where beauty lives in the everyday. 

Each melody dances like a brushstroke, gliding back and forth across a canvas and painting vivid stories in sound, just as Sutzkever painted masterpieces with his pen. The music moves between worlds, crossing the boundaries of dream and reality. 

Throughout the album, the Bashevis Singers seek not to explain Sutzkever’s poetry, but to dwell within it—not to speak for it, but to allow it to speak for itself. 

For Evie Gawenda, “Song for the Tormented” and “Crumbs of Fire” are particularly precious: 

“Song for the Tormented captures human anguish and suffering perfectly, and even though it’s sad, it’s also hopeful in the end. It resonates with me. The poetry and melody marry beautifully in this one.” 

In the closing moments of the album, Sutzkever himself has the final word. His own recorded voice lingers after the music has faded, inviting listeners to sit with the poetry that inspired the album and to carry its echoes with them long after the final note. 

You can pre-order the limited-edition vinyl of Moon’s Milk by The Bashevis Singers at thebashevissingers.com. 

Moon’s Milk is also available now on streaming services. 

Album cover of Moon's Milk