Shema

from The Four Questions by Zohar's Nigun

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4 panel gatefold wallet with a single pocket printed in full colour on recycled coated stock with matt cello finish. Photography care of Alex Weltlinger, Barnabas Imre and Gabor Balogh. Artwork care of Dean Burton and Ella Egidy.

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about

Concepts behind 'The Four Questions' by Zohar's Nigun (interview with Daniel Weltlinger, September 2012):

This is the little afterthought track and was for a long while on my mind to include. I recorded this track some time after the initial recordings of the band at Studios 301. It is a field recording which took place at Echo Point in the Blue Mountains (outside of Sydney), late in the evening shortly after a storm when there was no one around. There was a big thick fog around the mythical 3 sisters, and I sang to myself Shema which is one of the very oldest of Hebrew prayers. It translates as 'Hear O Israel, the Lord is everywhere, the Lord is one'. My point is not necessarily a religious one but rather a cultural and an ironic point. This prayer has been sung without a doubt through the ages by generations upon generations upon generations of the Jewish people to which all four band members' families belong to. It is a prayer with a subtle underlying cry for peace in the world and I deliberately recorded it in a place of religious significance to the Indigenous people for it is an irony being on this land that has been inhabited for so many thousands of years by these people. We are on their land - even if it not our fault - and this must always be acknowledged with respect, even if in the most subtle of ways. It seemed fitting to conclude the first Zohar's Nigun CD with one of the oldest of the Jewish people's prayers sung at a place of incalculable age that was habited by a people with an incalculable history.

lyrics

English:

Hear, Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.

Hebrew:

Sh'ma Yis'ra'eil Adonai Eloheinu Adonai echad.

שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יהוה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יהוה אֶחָד