For Tremor Fantasma DeLeon takes their mission of modernizing Sephardic folk music one step further:  for the first time in the 500-year life span of the genre, the music of the Jewish communities expelled during the Spanish Inquisition got crowdsourced.  For their exhilarating third LP, DeLeon invited the international community of Sephardic folk music enthusiasts to assemble a playlist of songs for the full DeLeon treatment.

“Sephardic music has a small but enthusiastic fanbase all around the world," says the creative force behind DeLeon, Dan Saks,"and I thought it would be great to involve our fans, and fans of the music in general, in this album.”  So Saks filmed a video and then invited Sephardic music fans from around the globe to assemble a playlist of Sephardic songs on Spotify.  Once the list got long enough, Saks began researching the selections and deciding how these age-old but still powerful songs could be reborn through DeLeon's distinctive voice.

The folk songs in question come from far-flung places such as Spain, Greece and Turkey, and now find themselves in modern day Mexico City, where Saks recently relocated to continue honing a signature musical blend described by Soundroots.org as “a world of ethnic threads reaching deep into the past, but woven together into a hip garment that wouldn’t look out of place in even the hippest club.” The musical vocabulary of Tremor Fantasma marries junk drums, Appalachian banjo, Morricone guitars and mariachi trumpets with centuries-old tales of joy and sorrow sung in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) and Hebrew,  guaranteeing a record unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. Unless of course you've heard one of DeLeon's previous two albums: their brilliant 2008 self-titled “breath of fresh air” (Austinist) debut and the acclaimed 2011 “stellar musical adventure” (Hot Indie News) Casata.

There's a very good reason the album is titled Tremor Fantasma.  “Shortly after I began working on this album, Mexico City was hit with a series of earthquakes — and then the local volcano Popocatépetl started acting up,” explains Saks.  “I was experiencing phantom quakes in the studio and vivid volcanic dreams throughout the recording process.  Being tuned into the instability of the very earth we walk on comes through to me when I listen to these recordings.  This is our most organic and alive-sounding record yet.”  Tremor Fantasma is a Spanglish allusion to those ghostly tremors.

Even though DeLeon has successfully marked out their own turf in today’s overcrowded music scene, they have managed to pair with other like-minded new-whirled bands on the road including Gogol Bordello, Os Mutantes, Balkan Beat Box and Ozomatli, to name a few.  “We’ve found that audiences don’t need to understand an ancient language like Ladino to enjoy our shows,”  says Saks.  “They can relate to the emotion of the melodies and the undeniable grooves we put under them.”

Listen to the hymn “Ya Ribon Alam” to hear how DeLeon finds common ground between Shlomo Carlebach and Animal Collective.  Or to “Hamavdil” to hear what it would sound like if Jamaica’s Wingless Angels went camping with Fleet Foxes.  The old Turkish moral tale “Barminan” finds itself standing amid mariachis in Mexico City’s Plaza Garibaldi.  Tremor Fantasma is full of these kinds of effortless cultural mash-ups that are bound to show the listener the joys of something old and something new, something foreign and something familiar, from a band uniquely adept at bridging the geographical and historical divide.

For Tremor Fantasma DeLeon takes their mission of modernizing Sephardic folk music one step further:  for the first time in the 500-year life span of the genre, the music of the Jewish communities expelled during the Spanish Inquisition got crowdsourced.  For their exhilarating third LP, DeLeon invited the international community of Sephardic folk music enthusiasts to assemble a playlist of songs for the full DeLeon treatment.

“Sephardic music has a small but enthusiastic fanbase all around the world," says the creative force behind DeLeon, Dan Saks,"and I thought it would be great to involve our fans, and fans of the music in general, in this album.”  So Saks filmed a video and then invited Sephardic music fans from around the globe to assemble a playlist of Sephardic songs on Spotify.  Once the list got long enough, Saks began researching the selections and deciding how these age-old but still powerful songs could be reborn through DeLeon's distinctive voice.

The folk songs in question come from far-flung places such as Spain, Greece and Turkey, and now find themselves in modern day Mexico City, where Saks recently relocated to continue honing a signature musical blend described by Soundroots.org as “a world of ethnic threads reaching deep into the past, but woven together into a hip garment that wouldn’t look out of place in even the hippest club.” The musical vocabulary of Tremor Fantasma marries junk drums, Appalachian banjo, Morricone guitars and mariachi trumpets with centuries-old tales of joy and sorrow sung in Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) and Hebrew,  guaranteeing a record unlike anything you’ve ever heard before. Unless of course you've heard one of DeLeon's previous two albums: their brilliant 2008 self-titled “breath of fresh air” (Austinist) debut and the acclaimed 2011 “stellar musical adventure” (Hot Indie News) Casata.

There's a very good reason the album is titled Tremor Fantasma.  “Shortly after I began working on this album, Mexico City was hit with a series of earthquakes — and then the local volcano Popocatépetl started acting up,” explains Saks.  “I was experiencing phantom quakes in the studio and vivid volcanic dreams throughout the recording process.  Being tuned into the instability of the very earth we walk on comes through to me when I listen to these recordings.  This is our most organic and alive-sounding record yet.”  Tremor Fantasma is a Spanglish allusion to those ghostly tremors.

Even though DeLeon has successfully marked out their own turf in today’s overcrowded music scene, they have managed to pair with other like-minded new-whirled bands on the road including Gogol Bordello, Os Mutantes, Balkan Beat Box and Ozomatli, to name a few.  “We’ve found that audiences don’t need to understand an ancient language like Ladino to enjoy our shows,”  says Saks.  “They can relate to the emotion of the melodies and the undeniable grooves we put under them.”

Listen to the hymn “Ya Ribon Alam” to hear how DeLeon finds common ground between Shlomo Carlebach and Animal Collective.  Or to “Hamavdil” to hear what it would sound like if Jamaica’s Wingless Angels went camping with Fleet Foxes.  The old Turkish moral tale “Barminan” finds itself standing amid mariachis in Mexico City’s Plaza Garibaldi.  Tremor Fantasma is full of these kinds of effortless cultural mash-ups that are bound to show the listener the joys of something old and something new, something foreign and something familiar, from a band uniquely adept at bridging the geographical and historical divide.

En el álbum Tremor Fantasma, DeLeon lleva su proyecto de modernización de la música folklórica sefardí un pasó más allá: por primera vez en los 500 años de vida que lleva este género, la música que fue expulsada de las comunidades judías durante la inquisición española vuelve a popularizarse.

Para su excitante tercer álbum, DeLeon invitó a apasionados de la música sefardí a conformar una lista de canciones para ser tratadas al puro estilo DeLeon.

“La música sefaradí tiene un pequeño pero entusiasta grupo de seguidores alrededor del mundo” dice Dan Saks, la fuerza creativa detrás de DeLeon “y pensé que sería maravilloso involucrar a nuestros fans y a los fans de la música en general en este álbum”. Saks grabó un video invitando a seguidores de la música sefardí alrededor del mundo para elaborar una lista de canciones dentro del estilo en Spotify (sitio de internet que permite al usuario escuchar todo tipo de música. N de la T). Una vez que la lista fue lo suficientemente larga, Saks  comenzó la búsqueda y selección de los temas y decidió cuál de todas estas viejas canciones podrían renacer dentro del lenguaje distintivo de DeLeon.

Las canciones folklóricas en cuestión provienen de lugares lejanos como España, Grecia y Turquía y ahora podemos escucharlas en la Ciudad de México donde Saks recientemente se mudó para continuar puliendo un estilo personal descrito por Soundroots.org como “un mundo de hilos étnicos que indagan profundamente en el pasado, pero que tejen una prenda que no parecería fuera de lugar incluso en el más moderno de los clubs”. El vocabulario musical de Tremor Fantasma conjunta percusiones de basura, banjo de los Apalaches, guitarras estilo Morricone y trompetas de mariachi con historias legendarias de júbilo y tristeza cantadas en ladino (dialecto Judío-Español) y hebreo, garantizando un disco como nunca antes se había visto. A menos, claro, que hayan ya escuchado los dos trabajos previos de DeLeon: el brillante debut homónimo del 2008 descrito como “bocanada de aire fresco” (Austinist) y el aclamado Casata del 2011, una “aventura estelar musical” (Hot Indie News).

Hay una buena razón por la que este álbum recibe el nombre Tremor Fantasma. “Poco tiempo después de que empecé a trabajar en él, la Ciudad de México fue sacudida por una seria de temblores ─ y luego el volcán Popocatépetl comenzó a aumentar su actividad” explica Saks. “Estuve experimentando temblores fantasma en el estudio y sueños volcánicos muy reales durante el proceso de grabación. Me siento en sintonía con la inestabilidad de la Tierra misma en que vivimos cuando escucho las grabaciones. Este es el disco más orgánico y con sonido más vivo que hemos hecho”. Tremor Fantasma es una alusión en Spanglish a estos fantasmales temblores.

Aunque DeLeon a marcado exitosamente su territorio dentro de la sobre-poblada escena musical, han logrado hacer equipo con otros proyectos con los que comparten algunas similitudes como Gogol Bordello, Os Mutantes, Balkan Beat Box y Ozomatli, por nombrar a algunos. “Hemos descubierto que el público no necesita entender un lenguaje antiguo como el ladino para disfrutar nuestros shows” dice Saks. “Ellos logran relacionarse con lo emotivo de las melodías y el innegable groove que les ofrecemos”.

Escuchen el himno “Ya Ribon Alam” para descubrir cómo DeLeon tiende un puente entre Shlomo Carlebach y Animal Collective. O “Hamavdil” para conocer como sonaría si los Jamaica´s Wingless Angels acamparan junto con los Fleet Foxes. El viejo cuento turco “Barminam” se halla a sí mismo en medio de los mariachis de Plaza Garibaldi en la Ciudad de México. Tremor Fantasma esta lleno de este tipo de mezcolanza cultural accidental que obligará al escucha a descubrir las maravillas de lo antiguo y lo reciente, con algo extraño y algo familiar de una banda que simpatiza con fundir las divisiones de lo geográfico y lo histórico.