Dutch/Israeli chanteuse Keren Ann stocks the record store shelves with a new CD, 101 (Blue Note), which contrasts her melancholy, dreamy lyrics and lovely lilting voice with a spy persona (complete with a rather serious-looking pistol) — and she sings “My Name Is Trouble.” Keren Ann Zeidel, who is still kind of an unknown quantity [...]

Socalled, a.k.a. Josh Dolgin, the Montreal-based composer and klezmer/hip-hop artist, is known to millions from the brilliant YouTube video of his song “You Are Never Alone” — in which his head comes apart to reveal various mechanical workings. Director Garry Beitel’s documentary, The ‘Socalled’ Movie (Lorber Films), captures the artist reflecting and performing around the [...]

Minneapolis-based publisher Kar-Ben has released “The Queen Who Saved Her People” by Tilda Balsley, a new adaptation of the well-known Purim story. This version, however, intended for ages four and older, comes alive with whimsical, colorful illustrations by Ilene Richard and rhyming verse — the dialogue of which is color-coded for multiple readers or performers. [...]

In May 1942, film of the Warsaw Ghetto was discovered in an East German archive. But the later discovery of a long-missing reel, which included multiple takes and cameramen staging scenes, showed the truth behind the making of a Nazi propaganda film. The Film Society of Minneapolis/Saint Paul (formerly Minnesota Film Arts) will screen A [...]

Striking shirtwaist makers selling copies of The Call, the New York socialist newspaper, are depicted in Triangle Fire, a documentary film, part of the PBS American Experience series, which airs Feb. 28 on TPT-2. The film, directed by Jamila Wignot, highlights a period when Jewish immigrants flooded into America seeking better lives for themselves and [...]

Some years ago, I wrote about a new album from jazz guitarist Roni Ben-Hur and suggested that the Dakota Jazz Club might book him for a show. That didn’t come to pass, but I succeeded with the St. Paul JCC’s music impresario Jeffrey Richman. The Israeli native will perform in concert on the evening of [...]

Now out on DVD, the documentary Neshoba: The Price of Freedom (First Run Features), tells the story of justice delayed and denied. In the summer of 1964, three young civil rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner — a black from Mississippi and two New York Jews — were murdered in rural Neshoba [...]

St. Louis Park native Peter Himmelman can add artist to his list of professional credits. Pictured below is a detail from “Seismic 4400,” which is featured on the cover of his latest album, The Mystery and the Hum (Himmasongs Recordings). Writing on his Web site, Himmelman, the artist, says, “In almost every case, I’m lead somewhere [...]

A new two-CD set from Bob Dylan, The Bootleg Series, Volume 9 — The Witmark Demos (Columbia/Legacy), showcases the songwriting talents of the troubadour from Hibbing, Minn. The 47 songs on the album were recorded by Dylan, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar, harmonica and piano, for Leeds Music, his first music publisher, in 1962, and [...]

Lynda Monick-Isenberg’s “K’riah: Rending the Garment” (below), graphite and gouache on plastic velum, is part of Sketch Work, an exhibit of drawings on display Dec. 16–Jan. 22 at Form + Content Gallery in Minneapolis. According to curator Christopher Atkins, the artists were asked to “think about sketching in new terms.” In her artist statement, Monick-Isenberg said [...]