Matti Caspi - Soulmate (Phonokol 2010)

Ehud Manor passed away in 2005 and left many undiscovered texts. They are words no one has ever seen, and Matti Caspi was given the first right to them from the Manor family. He took these texts, composed to them and created a touching album with a taste of old.
When Ehud Manor passed away, Caspi said he felt like an orphan. “Soulmate” - that’s how Manor (RIP) used to call Matti Caspi - “the man to whose soul my soul is bound”. And hence the album’s title.
Also participating in the album are Yehudith Ravitz, Idan Reichel, Shiri Mimon, Suyan Caspi, Sima Shoshan and Chen Amar.

From the press:

“Matti Caspi is excellent again. ‘Soulmate’ is classic that reminds us of Caspi’s good old days… And that isn’t trivial at all… It seems that now in ‘Soulmate’ something especially good has happened to him creatively, and he may sound like “the good old days” but he also sounds new with his energies, intention and accurate performance. And you can’t refer to ‘Soulmate’ only as ‘Matti Caspi’s new album’. Five years after Manor’s passing (April 12th 2005) this album is also ‘Manor’s new one’. Apart from two old songs (‘Let’s Dance’ and a renewal of ‘Samba for Two’) all songs in the album were composed in recent years by Caspi to lyrics left by Ehud Manor (RIP). He doesn’t ‘compose’ them, but really breathes life into them. The album’s tingling opening, in the song ‘Closeness of God‘ written by Ehud Manor (based on chapter 43 of Psalms), supposedly after his death, is the essence of the artistic miracle that has occurred so many times in the meetings of the soulmates. This song, which was written by Ehud Manor ten days prior to his death, has already been performed before to the music of Michael Kelmanovitz (Manor’s student at the Rimon music school) and was performed by Eran Talmor. Their version is very beautiful, but when Matti Caspi composes and performs the lyrics, Ehud Manor lives in that music. It’s as if Caspi’s music was played in Manor’s head while writing the lyrics, and vise versa, Caspi finds in Manor the lyrics that would match his music. In their fruitful work, each has had more co-creators, but it seems that their special connection gives them exceptional creative freedom and space… Caspi doesn’t have big revolutions in this album, but he continues to be an interesting composer, an amazing melodist, a versatile arranger and an exceptional performer. ‘Soulmate’ is the known Matti Caspi, yet it’s also a richness of tastes and rhythms, from samba to rock, from Moroccan music to ballades, from songs that are suited for memorial days to party songs. Here there’s a blues harmonica in the style of Toots Thielemans (played by Matti Caspi), there a guitar in the style of Santana (played by Yair Michael), sometimes Caspi is heard alone and sometimes with a combination of vocals with Yehudith Ravitz, Sima Shoshan, Shiri Mimon, Idan Reichel, Haim Uliel, Suyan Caspi and Chen Amar. Ehud would’ve loved it”. (Yoav Kutner, Kutner rock.net))

“In his new album, ‘Soulmate’, which is based on lyrics written by his soulmate, the late Ehud Manor (more accurately, thirteen songs found in Manor’s drawer after he passed away), he returns to be good old, classic and exciting Matti Caspi from the first note. Caspi makes here a hell of a U-Turn back to basics, and yes, it’s wonderful”. (Royee Baharir, Maariv nrg))

“The more songs come out of ‘Soulmate’, Matti Caspi’s new album to Ehud Manor’s (RIP) lyrics, it seems that Caspi is leaving behind his less good years and comes back with a bang, diverse and excellent… ‘One Body’, a duet with Yehudith Ravitz, is full of freshness and life, it reminds of the days of old”. (Assaf Nevo, Mako))