Canadian producer/musician Josh Dolgin, who goes by the stage name Socalled, is being rightfully marketed as a “Yiddish rappin’, accordion wieldin’, Klezmer hip hoppin’ maestro” by his publicists. But equally important a title would be anthropologist, since this Quebec-born Yiddish musicologist is continually digging for old sounds, studying their cultural reference points and determining how to link them with contemporary music/culture. 

For his new album, Ghettoblaster, on JDub (the New York forward-thinking Jewish music label that launched sometime-collaborator Matisyahu’s career), Dolgin traveled many miles painstakingly recording 40 different musical guests in 15 studios all around the world. These include such disparate sound sources as a choir of Hasidic children, old-time lounge lizard Irving Fields, James Brown trombonist Fred Wesley and hip-hop emcee C-Rayz Walz.

Speaking recently by phone from Banff, Alberta, where he was remixing a classical quartet, Dolgin says that he went to these lengths (versus simply sampling a bunch of old records) “because in this world, it is harder to live a folk culture” and that this is his way of creating a new folk culture. “By bringing people together and making interesting combinations and collaborations.”

Of all of these collaborations, it’s old-school lounge legend Irving Fields who Dolgin is most ecstatic to be working with. “He is my hero...and we are sort of kindred spirits,” says Dolgin of the spirited 92-year-old New Yorker who still gigs regularly (at Nino’s Tuscany, 117 W. 58th St).

“When I started collecting old records, I found his old records. He had made dozens of albums decades ago, most notably his 1958 Bagels and Bongos, which was really revolutionary at the time: bringing the Jewish melodies that he grew up with and combining them with the funky rhythms of his day,” explains Dolgin. “Then I found out he was still active, so I started interviewing him and hanging out with him and listening to him play. He is unbelievable! I brought him to Montreal a couple of times to do concerts.” Be prepared, Dolgin confides that Fields will most likely open the Knitting Factory show on Thursday.

June 7, Knitting Factory, 74 Leonard St. (betw. B’way & Church St.), 212-219-3132; 8, $8.