She qualifies it as her most intimate album, although if something has always characterized Luz Casal, and especially her latest productions, it is sincerity and sharing her own feelings and sensations.
In any case, today Friday Las ventanas de mi alma (Virgin) appears, which here without a doubt fully reflects its many-sided and current personality. Twelve new songs except the one that closes the volume, A Little More Love, and in which the Galician singer-songwriter also participates in its co-production.
There will be several nearby opportunities to enjoy this excellent and comforting work live, whose tour begins tomorrow Saturday and will stop at the Strenes de Girona festival or at the Liceu in Barcelona on May 25. Already in the festival summer you can also enjoy his music, among others, at the Cap Roig date on August 13.
Las ventanas de mi alma is musically very varied, but is there a common thread in the themes of your lyrics?
I think that if there was, despite so many different themes, I think it has to do with my life, and I would tell you that with my intimate life. Somehow I have had less modesty in teaching myself than on previous occasions, and thus I speak of the defects, of the desires, of the experience. I have not been ashamed to say that I am not fresh meat, that kind of thing that is sometimes said in a very eloquent way and other times a little more nuanced. It could be said that it is an intimate album without that meaning that it is restful.
Has there been any reason that has led you to lose that modesty?
It’s like everything, like that day you decide to eat chocolate again. In other words, one day you say “I want to recover my innocence, I don’t want to be smeared by aspects that can bring consequences that I would not like, I want to continue being a believer, not in a religious sense but thinking that people can be better than they are.” until now I thought. On other albums, for example, he talked about trust in someone, but here instead there are aspects like belief and the importance of what it means to have friends, and what that means. That return that seems to have left a few years ago now seems to be quite present. Childhood is a lost period, but now you return to it from time to time but not regretting not being able to be living it now. The important thing about that stage is not to let it get dirty.
Among the songs on the album, the one that closes it stands out, A little more love, by Carmen Santonja and that has had it parked for thirty years.
It is a song that I was very satisfied with at the time but that I did not include on the album A Contraluz [of 1991] because it was not the time, it did not fit. And now, when the war in Ukraine begins and perhaps because I was affected because I know people of that nationality, I got it back because the lyrics are impressive and reflect, after so many years, the present in an extraordinary way.
And in another of the songs, in the single Hello, how are you, he says that “I have been hostage to my weaknesses many times.” Confess some…
I prefer to reveal them little by little, hahahaha. No; What I want to say is that since I have lived alert, I realize it, my weaknesses, my fears, and that every day I accept that there are a series of things that I am unable to avoid, such as evils that seem unfair to me. And I think that a part of my life is based on trying to have a reward every day for being less weak and needing less things. I have become quite satisfied in this respect.
Linking up with what you said at the beginning, could the fact of opening up on this album, like having assumed the importance of age, also be a consequence of having overcome cancer? [in fact on two occasions, 2007 and 2010]
Age is something that you either assume or you really have a serious problem; For me, having a birthday is not a burden but a joy. I can have a greater use of my body and that does not discourage me because that is not the most important thing. The most important thing is to live but not to think that you live as a consequence of experiencing a disease, for example. I have been quite aware, especially as an adult, that life is worth living in all its stages. I don’t miss that ‘I wish I was twenty’… I take on my life in a fairly harmonious way.
Did the calls-chats you had with more than two thousand strangers during confinement help in this?
The question was what could I do for others apart from being a singer, what could I contribute differently? Well, a kind of consolation, a kind of brief company, open my ears and offer my time to anyone. And what that brought me was, on the one hand, evidence of the different realities. Because in those minutes people opened up, they said things that in some cases were very serious intimacies, but they did it because they needed company or they had enormous anxiety: they opened up and told you, for example, “look Luz, well, what I’m going to throw myself out the window.” I noticed that with that little conversation people were a little calmer. Then, there are the conclusions, of how fragile we are in the face of an outrage like that state of exception.
What did you learn from all this?
I felt useful, close; I realized that she had the ability to put me in her shoes. See how people react according to each person’s profile. It was one of the greatest life experiences of my existence, but the greatest satisfaction of all, everything, was realizing how important it is to pay attention to people.
I have read about this album that it is cathartic. What does it mean?
I think we have achieved sounds, atmospheres, that help a lot to each song. I’m part of it, but now that I’m listening to it in a more passive way because it’s ready, I realize how certain sounds set you in the mood, situate you, help you listen to the songs with a different spirit.
By the way, the producer of the previous album, Que corra el aire, was Ricky Falkner and on this one there has been a significant change with Paco Salazar, and Paco Trinidad and yourself as co-producers.
My work with Ricky was super good, I was very satisfied, but the coincidences of life: a lot of time had passed due to the pandemic, he was on tour with the lesbians [he is a musician from Love of Lesbian] and things developed in another way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if at any other time, on any other album, I work with Ricky again because apart from his talent and experience, I feel very comfortable with him.
