If the droning nursery rhymes sung every year at Chanucah make you want to scorch yourself with the menorah, the alternative range of songs on a new album by Sacha Baron Cohen’s older brother might save you from third-degree burns.
Songs In The Key of Hanukah, produced by Erran Baron Cohen, will liven up any doughnuts and latkes bash this year. In the place of the traditional rendering of the dreidel song, we now have a frenetic version of the tune in a minor key, complete with Balkan beats and an accompanying video of Baron Cohen and collaborator Jules Brookes dressed as Chasidim, daubing graffiti and breakdancing.
The musician came up with the idea after composing the score for his younger brother’s hit movie Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan.
He was in Los Angeles when he met Jason Linn, head of New Line Records, who had been shopping for a Chanucah record for his father but could not find anything decent. Out of their conversation the concept of the modern Chanucah album was born.
