The Songs I Wrote  

Just Out

After years of composing and arranging music for a who’s who of topflight Jewish music artists, ELI KLEIN recently decided to break new ground by putting out a full album of his own compositions. Eli is half of the gifted Yitzy Berry and Eli Klein team whose studio in Jerusalem is a creative hub, offering full services from songwriting to arranging, producing to mixing and mastering, and anything in between. Their clients include MBD, Ohad, Naftali Kempeh, Rabbi Shloime Taussig, Benny Friedman, Eli Marcus, and dozens of others.

“When I record demos of my new compositions to offer to singers, their response is often to ask me why I don’t just sing and release them myself. Eventually, I began to think, why not?” Eli says.

Klein’s album, SHIRIM SHEKATAVTI, a collection of some of his best compositions, is also a platform for his own singing debut. Joining him is a choir of bochurim to give the entire album a kumzitz feel — he describes his singing as “kumzitz style,” which means that for some tracks he’s altered the entire arrangement and tempo from their original version.

“This is how I like to sing,” Eli says. “So although other artists expressed my songs differently, here I’ve decided to take them back in my own style. For example, when Motti Steinmetz took my ‘Zechor Bris Avraham,’ it was clear that he would record it in his chassidishe havarah and style. I was so used to this sound that it actually took me time to remember the way I originally composed it 14 years ago. I had to sing it a few times before I got used to it again and made it mine.”