• Mitmanías.The ghost of Leonard Cohen

The poetry of Leonad Cohen is more alive than ever in his posthumous album, titled Thanks for the dance , a work that ends with the slight flutter of a bird: Listen to the hummingbird / whose wings you cannot see / listen to him / and not to me ...

We also listen to his son, Adam Cohen, who produced the last album in the life of the teacher ( You want it darker , 2016) and who received a very personal final assignment: «I may expect a second life, I do not know. But I don't want to stick to a spiritual strategy . I do not care about that. I have work to do. You take care of the business, son, I'm ready to die. I hope it is not very uncomfortable ».

And that was what Adam did: he first published in 2018 his latest collection of poems and lyrics, La llama . And then he allowed his last songs to grow with the collaboration of his chamber musicians, such as the Aragonese Javier Mas (guitar and lute) or the singer Jennifer Warnes. Little by little they joined Beck, Bryce Dessner of The National, Richard Reed Parry of Arcade Fire, the Shaar Hashomayim choir or the Berlin Cantus Domus (with the miraculous hand of Michael Chaves in the sound and mixes).

"Leonard is still among us, speaking directly to us," testifies his son Adam. «That is the feeling I had while producing the disc, as if I were at the mercy of external forces, as if a hand were directed by remote control. And that is the effect that we wanted to achieve among all, that his music kept beating , that he could interpret these songs as if we were listening to him in privacy or at one of his concerts, when he finally took off his hat, put it on his chest and told the audience 'Thank you for keeping my songs alive' ».

Resting at the end / the accounts of the soul / is for trash / this was worth it all ... The last Leornard makes a review of life in The goal , the theme of advancing to the album that will be released on November 22. Her voice recites more than she sings, but there is in her an air more of celebration than of litany .

In the twilight of his days, the teacher wants to have Lorca very close, always Lorca . "I remember that when we were little, he read us his poems and we were always somehow imbued with his spirit," recalls Adam. «My sister was called Lorca in homage to him, and in almost all her albums there is a nod to her favorite poet».

Thanks for the dance album , which will go on sale next day 22, could not be less, and there we have the theme The night of Santiago , inspired by the poem The Married Unfaithful, with the guitar and the voice of the Catalan Silvia Pérez Cruz , putting the counterpoint to her baritone voice: The night of Santiago / as I was passing by / I decided to take her to the river / as any other man would do / She told me she was a virgin / although that is not what I heard / but I am not the Inquisition / and I took his word for granted ...

Adam Cohen narrows his eyes and tries to remember his father in his last lorquiano abduction ... «He was a man in the fullness of his creative faculties , with a monastic devotion to his work, as when he rose in the early morning to write and rewrite , in solitude and silence, while we slept. I talked a lot with him, in a very clear and direct way, and that allowed me to know what he wanted and what he didn't want, to be faithful to his spirit .

It was always hard work / but I never called it art / it was to finance my depression ... Leonard Cohen writes in Happens to the heart , the song that opens the album and sets the tone. "My intention has been to reconcile his grave and prophetic voice with an organic and acoustic space, as we did in You want it darker, " explains Adam Cohen. "If my father had been alive, he would have fought with me until he imposed his criteria, but I think he would have liked the minimalism we have achieved as a counterpoint to his voice."

Thanks for the dance / It was hell, it was great, it was fun / Thanks for the dances / one, two, three, one, two three ... Thanks for the dance has some double tribute to Take this waltz and Dance me to the end of love, the two classics of Leonard Cohen, which sound mentally as a backdrop in this intimate listening in the Spiritland of London, with Adam Cohen as the opening act: “He knew where to put exactly each syllable. He knew how to talk about God as if he were talking about sex, and vice versa . He wanted deep down to take us home and not feel his absence.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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