Matti Caspi and Shlomo Gronich - Behind the Sounds (CDI 2002)

Matti Caspi and Shlomo Gronich.
Special guests: Raquel Caspi (vocals) and Michal Adler-Gronich (harmonica).
A double CD recorded from live performance.

Following the commercial success of the last “Behind the Sounds” tour, Gronich and Caspi decided to capture it in a double CD album which was recorded during many live shows in 2002. In this tour also participate Gronich and Caspi’s wives, Michal Adler-Gronich (harmonica and vocals) and Raquel Caspi (vocals). Gronich plays the piano, accordion, a pair of sticks (instead of two spoons), and a melodica (album cover). Caspi, unsurprisingly, doesn’t make do with a guitar alone, but also plays the piano.

The double album was released in a private publication by Caspi and Gronich. In a surprising coincidence, which probably came from an intention to react to the joint concert’s great success, shortly after this album came out the album with the original show in a fancy edition, containing some of pieces which were not included in the original edition. This added to the buyers’ embarrassment when they sought after the new concert album, and instead got the new edition of the album recording the concert from the 70’s.

The album’s recording is meticulous, so are the digital editing and the mixing, and the result is one of the finest live show albums ever recorded in Israel. In order to maintain the live performance atmosphere, many linking parts were left in the albums, most of them spontaneous and captured the audience and performers’ joy during the tour.

As usual, with Caspi and Gronich, each one’s brilliance is actually manifested in the other’s songs. Gronich does wonders playing the piano while accompanying Caspi who sings “She Converted”. Also, Caspi’s new song “You Are My Woman” gets more depth and poetry with Gronich’s brush strokes. Caspi, however, performs “Time Passes” wondrously, transforms “Nowhere” into a Brazilian samba celebration, and gives “Noiva” its syncopatic personality from the original performance.

Other than the great performances, the album contains two unexpected surprises - the first is a new performance of the song “Little Pinkas” which is hidden in the first record. In this song Caspi and Gronich recreate their first musical encounter with each other. Another surprise, for whomever didn’t see the shows, is the new song the two wrote for the new concert - “A Girl Left on the Beach”, which composition doesn’t fall short than its senior songs written by the duo thirty years ago. The performance and arrangement also contribute much to the song, having four separate parts written for it - three vocal parts and another for Michal Adler-Gronich’s harmonica, which even has an improvisation piece mid-song.