Josh Reichmann Dreams Up A Jewish Legend
Wednesday December 13, 2006 @ 04:30 PM
By: ChartAttack.com Staff


Jewish Legend

When Tangiers fizzled out after releasing 2005's The Family Myth, singer/guitarist Josh Reichmann found himself in need of an outlet for his increasingly grandiose musical visions.

Now, reborn as The Jewish Legend, the dreams of tubas, saxophones and gongs that Reichmann kept to himself during his Tangiers years have a home in his first solo outing, Telepathy Now.


"I think the name [The Jewish Legend] summed up some of the themes I was interested in, which were mysticism and cultural myths," Reichmann says in describing his latest venture. "The mysticism that comes with the root of spiritual endeavors."

Reichmann looked to unusual sources of inspiration for Telepathy Now, from the worlds of his dreams, to the ancient visionary practices of the Toltec Indians of central Mexico. He wanted to do something different with this disc, but didn't have to look any further than his own beliefs.

"It's impossible to encapsulate those ideas into music properly," Reichmann explains. "They're just things that I've been focusing on. I have a history of lucid dreaming. That's part of the shaman tradition of things that I got really interested in after I realized that lucid dreaming is really valued culturally by some people. So, that sort of became the energy I wanted to explore on this record instead of just regular themes of love.

"The final intention of the record is about honesty and even though it sounds surreal and kind of absurd and strange in parts, it's really about getting real with one's self and it's really an anti-posturing record."

Finding himself unable to play every one of the numerous instruments he wanted to include on his new disc, Reichmann enlisted the assistance of a few friends in order to make his dreams a reality. Jon McCann (Guided By Voices, Nassau) sits in on drums for Telepathy Now, and the album was co-produced by Ian McGettigan (Joel Plaskett, Camouflage Nights), who picked up the rest of the instrument slack.

Though McGettigan sometimes joins in on stage, The Jewish Legend live show is primarily a two-piece, with Jeremy Finkelstein (No Dynamics) backing up Reichmann behind the drum kit.

Reichmann started working on the music for Telepathy Now as soon as he found himself freed from the confines of a band dynamic. Though The Jewish Legend sound is quite distant from the music he was making with Tangiers, Reichmann says the shift was natural, rather than intentional.

"There were a lot of ideas and themes and music that I hadn't gotten on to when Tangiers was going on," he explains, "so I knew I wanted to make music that wasn't just part of that band's script. Basically, after the last Tangiers record I knew I wanted to make a new one of my own... I don't think it was conscious, but I no longer had the urge to be strictly working within the format that Tangiers was doing."

Though he has no solid touring plans for 2007, Reichmann promises The Jewish Legend will continue to pop up in bars in the Toronto area with, he hopes, the occasional visit to Montreal. He'll be appear Dec. 21 at Toronto's Silver Dollar.

—Scott Bryson