Minneapolis band Red Thread live in-studio with new Serbian and Yiddish album, ‘Immigrantke’

JACOB ALOI: Well, every day on Minnesota Now, about this time, you hear these song of the day. And we have a special, you could say, extended edition of that today. Max Sparber, arts editor here at MPR News-- you spoke with a Minnesota band that just put out a new album, is that correct?

MAX SPARBER: That is correct. The band is called Red Thread. Recently, they put out an album that's called Immigrantke, which is a Yiddish word that means "female immigrant." And the album is a collection of originals and traditional folk songs. The album is sung in English, Serbian, and Yiddish.

I reviewed their album about a month ago and really liked it, and so I invited them into the studio to perform some of their songs live. The band is Sarah Larsson-- she's on banjo and lead vocals. Erika Lantz provides harmony vocals. You'll hear Pat O'Keefe on clarinet and Dex Wolfe on guitar, and we'll hear Sarah explain the origin of the band. And then she'll perform two songs.

SARAH LARSSON: So I have been studying, for many years, various music traditions, especially from Eastern Europe. And Red Thread is the new project. And we've been taking some of these traditional songs and expanding them outwards, even maybe a little bit more with instrumentation and with some production elements, but still keeping the harmony vocals kind of at the core.

MAX SPARBER: You mentioned it's largely music from Balkans. I know that there's some Irish music and some Yiddish music as well. It feels like it's very strongly about the immigrant experience. How did this come about?

SARAH LARSSON: Yeah, I definitely had been thinking for a long time about all of the connections between these different folk music styles and had felt for a long time, like just in my own voice and in my own storytelling, they all kind of wanted to come live side by side. So the Eastern European music and Yiddish music and Irish music and then original songs of mine that I'm writing in English. And I think I also really saw, as a patron of and a lover of a lot of different folk and Americana music, I go to a lot of shows, and all the stories that people are telling across that genre, they're all so resonant with these traditional tunes as well.

This one is an original song of mine called "Sailor's Lullaby," which I wrote initially kind of just singing of a sweetie of mine being far away from me and wishing we could be together. And as I've played it more and more and as we worked on it in this group, it really just quickly came into conversation with so many of these immigration stories, where people are leaving their closest peeps and going across the ocean or flying to a new place, and really how common and widespread that experience is. So this is the love song, the lullaby for that person who's far away.

[RED THREAD, "SAILOR'S LULLABY"]

(SINGING) I imagine you dreaming

I imagine you light on a sea far away

I picture you rocking and rolling

Adrift on the dreams of the world

I imagine you dream

I imagine you light on a sea far away

I picture you rocking and rolling

Adrift on the dreams of the world

And ooh, you drift away

Ooh, you never stay

So I imagine you dreaming

I imagine you light on a sea far away

I picture you rocking and rolling

Adrift on the dreams of the world

The life of a sailor

Is rope burns and rough seas and foam

And each time you wake in from dreaming

Their zephyrs remind you of home

And ooh, I drift away

And ooh, I never stay

So I imagine us dreaming

I'm imagine us sliding. Where is. I picture us rock. Adrift on the dreams of the world. Who picture us rock. Drift on the dreams of the world.

OK, this is a traditional song from Serbia that I learned from a singer named Bojana Djordjevic. And it sings and tells the story of two sisters, Magdalena and Jelena, who both go swimming in the Morava River on a dark autumn night. And unfortunately, Magdalena walks away from the river that night, but Jelena drowns.

[RED THREAD, "STO MORAVA MUTNA TECE"]

[NON-ENGLISH SINGING]

MAX SPARBER: So first of all, I'd like to thank Evan Clark and Megan Lundberg, who provided the audio engineering for that. Red Thread will be performing this Saturday at the Museum of Russian Art in Minneapolis as part of a celebration of a Serbian sculptor. The event begins at 7:00 PM. And if you want to find out more about the band and upcoming performances, you can find it at redthreadsings.com.