Photos by Michał Ramus.
This unclassifiable, uplifting band is led by the singer and guitarist Jeremiah Lockwood, the grandson of the renowned cantor Jacob Konigsberg, whose choir Lockwood once sang in. Lockwood’s diverse musical influences also include a nearly two-decade apprenticeship in the New York subways with the legendary Piedmont blues master Carolina Slim and a collaboration with several prominent Malian musicians which took place on a long visit there a few years ago.
— The New Yorker
In 2023, long-running New York-based band The Sway Machinery premiered The Dream Past: A Sonic Conjuring, the latest project of the “unclassifiable and uplifting” (The New Yorker) Brooklyn rock band, The Sway Machinery. Featuring the double-front of vocalists Yuli Ya’el Be’eri and band-leader Jeremiah Lockwood, the ace horn section of band-cofounders Stuart Bogie and Jordan McLean, and the great beauty of drummer John Bollinger, The Dream Past extends the band’s long running project of cantorial revival—excavating the otherworldly potentials of Jewish sacred music and lost melodies to instigate a party, break boundaries between communities, and touch the past. Like its debut project, Hidden Melodies Revealed, which also drew upon High Holidays liturgy, The Dream Past offers an expansive vision of what can be achieved through commitment to ancestor voices and reciprocity with the dead. This new work turns to a lost and now rediscovered archive of bootleg recordings of live prayer leading as the source material for its ecstatic transformation.
Founded around the year 2005, The Sway Machinery’s sound is rooted in the personal history of bandleader Jeremiah Lockwood, whose education included singing in the choir of his grandfather, Cantor Jacob Konigsberg and over a decade of playing in the subways of New York City with Piedmont Blues legend Carolina Slim. The Sway Machinery has a long history of producing unique concert events that call upon the social qualities of the Yiddish-spiritual music tradition known as khazones (cantorial art music). Part rock concert, part theatrical experience, their shows have presented a unique facet of New York City culture for decades, drawing together diverse communities in a radically inclusive environment.
The band’s breakthrough project, Hidden Melodies Revealed, was an event that blurred the line between ritual and concert, repurposing the Rosh HaShana (Jewish new year) service as an art experience and immersive spectacle. Collaborating artists on the project included actress/singer Yuli Ya’el Be’eri, film maker Shawn Atkins, puppet maker Paul Andrejco and artist Andrea Deszo. The project debuted in 2007 at the Angel Orensanz Center on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, on the site of the former Slonimer Synagogue where Lockwood’s grandfather’s debut concert took place in 1949. In 2009 the band released an album of music from the project and performed a version of the project in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
In January of 2010, The Sway Machinery traveled to Mali to perform at the legendary Festival of the Desert in Timbuktu. While in Mali, the group recorded its second full-length album, The House of Friendly Ghosts Vol.1. The record featured collaborations with luminaries of Malian music, including Vieux Farka Toure and Khaira Arby. The band toured nationally and in Europe in support of the album, including numerous appearances with Khaira Arby.
In 2012-13 The Sway Machinery continued to burn up dance floors and festival stages around the world, including debuts in Australia, Israel, Warsaw, Mexico City and at legendary festivals Montreal Jazz and Roskilde in Denmark. In March 2015, they released their third LP, entitled Purity and Danger, juxtaposing songs about the subway and dead lovers with 200-year-old Cantorial melodies performed for the first time in generations. The album was followed by an EP of original love songs, You Will Love No One But Me.
After a partial hiatus, the band is currently working on releasing a flood of new music: an album of The Dream Past recently recorded during marathon sessions in Krakow, Poland, and a beautiful and strikingly different album titled Memories of Old New York produced by Stuart Bogie and featuring arrangements by Bogie, Lockwood and Yuli Ya’el Be’eri, a long time collaborator of the band who has joined the group in recent years, reinvigorating the music and live show. Look out for new releases and record release shows in 2025!!!
Albums
Hidden Melodies Revealed (JDub Records, 2009)
The House of Friendly Ghosts Vol. 1 (JDub Records, 2011)
Purity and Danger (3rd Generation Recordings, 2015)
The Sway Machinery EP (JDub Records, 2008)
You Will Love No One But Me (3rd Generation Recordings, 2015)