Matti Caspi - Matti (Hed Arzi 1993)

“Matti“, Matti’s last album before leaving for the USA for a few years, is one of his most emotional albums. And indeed, the album’s name is a statement of the intention of the artist to create an intimacy between him and the listeners.

In order to maintain a unanimous style of writing and in light of their long-year friendship, Caspi asked Ehud Manor to write the lyrics for all the songs in the album. Manor has chosen intentionally this time, to write about Matti, who he’s known as a friend and as a person. Most of the songs tell the personal difficulties Caspi’s had that time. “She doesn’t sing a happy song” writes Manor about a bird in cage, which is actually about Caspi of course, and the minor songs in the album reflect his hard feelings. The prison motive repeats itself in the next song in the album as well, “Don’t Cry for Me”, which is one of the emotional highlights of the album. The raindrops motive appearing on the back of the cover and in the middle picture was not chosen by coincidence: it comes to show Matti’s agitation during the work on the album.

Among the notable songs in the album are the four opening songs: the first “Who Told You I’m an Angel” is about Caspi as a “flesh and blood” person. The song received a warm welcome and is one of the main focuses in Matti’s shows. The second song in the album “The Airport”, which like its predecessor, was released as a single to the radio, was played many times. “At the Piano” is undoubtedly one of Caspi’s most touching songs. The special composition joins Caspi’s much expressive singing, combined with the string instruments that join near the song’s ending, all make the song one of the album’s peaks. The composition of the song “In the City Nights” is a complex and fascinating combination of minor and major harmonies.

Like in the album “One to One”, in this album the happy songs are not in the center, however their place isn’t absent: “I Haven’t Been to Spain Yet” is a whimsical song of Caspi which was seriously written as usual. Another light and brilliant song is “Moonstruck”.

Unlike the album “One to One”, where the emphasis was put on a minimalistic production, in “Matti” Caspi chose to combine string instrument musicians from the philharmonic and a large group of wind instrument musicians which included among the rest Peter Wertheimer and Nitzan Ein Habar on the saxophones, and also eight backing singers. The arrangements in the album are rich and especially wonderful.