Five questions to: Idan Raichel

Only a few years ago, Idan Raichel was just some dreadlocked guy in a Tel Aviv basement, composing music on his synthesizers. First schooled on the accordion at the age of nine, Raichel branched out to Latin American and gypsy music. His time in the Israeli Army band solidified his musical skills. While there, he also came into contact with many Ethiopian Jews, which tuned him into the greater frequency of world music.

Soon, it wasn’t just Raichel and his synthesizer anymore. He was utilizing upwards of 70 musicians, changing a cast on every episode. In 2006, after releasing two proper albums in his native Israel, Raichel’s self-titled “greatest hits” album became a channel to international success.

Question 1 - What’s your songwriting process? Do you always work with the same musicians?

Idan Raichel -The idea of the Project is to have a new “cast” for each song. It gives us the ability to be very precise by the sound and vibe that we want to create, the right leader and right musicians that will support him.

Question 2 - The Israeli perception of pop, and of music in general, is very different than in the United States — it feels, as a listener at least, like there’s a lot more freedom in Israeli music, like when you drop a jungle beat on a slow song like “Bein Kirot Beiti.”

Idan Raichel - I always start a song with the vocals and I let the melody and the rendition of the song guide how the rest of the song develops. Then I just add what the singer needs to support him or her. If he needs only an acoustic guitar, then we give him that. If he needs something more electronic to contrast with what he is doing, we add that.

I like many different types of music, so I just try to use the best thing to enhance the melody and the singer’s voice. If it needs a contemporary beat, I’ll take it in that direction. The vibe is what is most important. I feel lucky that the listeners have an open mind and can follow where the music goes.

Question 3 - Some of the songs on your new album are in languages that most of your listeners don’t speak. What do you want people to get out of those songs?

Idan Raichel - I would like the listeners to hear themselves in something they maybe don’t understand completely. Sometimes, distance and language can be a challenge, but music has a way of overcoming these difficulties.

Question 4 - Do you feel more constrained when you’re making an international album than when you’re making an Israeli one?

Idan Raichel - No, our music in any case is Israel music, even if we distribute or performing with it out of Israel, so for us it is just a challenge to sing to the world in our native languages, Hebrew, Arabic, Amharic, Spanish, and so on…although the only official language in Israel is Hebrew. We have all these languages because we are all immigrants from other parts of the world.

Question 5 - Do you write your own Spanish lyrics? How much of the project is collaborative?

Idan Raichel - Working with [Colombian-born, New York-based] Marta [Gómez, Raichel’s vocal collaborator on several songs on the new album] is a pleasure. On “Within My Walls” I wrote songs in Hebrew and Marta took the song and wrote her own version in her native language so each song that is in another language is a real collaboration.

(From: http://www.myjewishlearning.com/blog/culture/interview-the-idan-raichel-project/)