I call that a debut!

Unbelievable but true: In fact, Cohen recorded his first album in more embarrassment sake; His his poetry and his novel "Beautiful Losers" were indeed praised (rightly!), but you have to live finally of something ...

The result of this "stopgap" was one of his best records ever - and that's already something hot at Cohen. "Songs of Leonard Cohen" delivers what the title promises: Twelve songs there are now, in the new edition, all orchestrated spartan, and there goes your masterpiece. Cohen and his guitar to his band Kaleidoscope that his restrained style adapts congenial. Not that Cohen would be a guitar supremo, and secure intonation is also been his thing ever. But as he sings, as fail to learn guitar playing comes across, as he unfolds his melodies - that's just awesome. The man can not only dense, no, he has that instinct, which must sound like. This instinct has one, or you do not have him. And Cohen has him.

Now's are even twelve songs, ten of them classics across all times and fashions, not one hangover. "Suzanne", "Master Song", "Sisters of Mercy", "Stories of the Street," "Winter Lady" ... Who does not? The two bonus tracks (Store Room, Blessed Is The Memory) seamlessly fit into this series, sound as if they had always been included on the album.

The bass in 1968 not so abysmally later, the Cohen-typical background singers make themselves rarely noticeable, but Cohen's style is yet ready; the haunting voice expresses exactly from what his lyrics breathe: They deal with pain and loss, love, loneliness and fear - all without self-pity, instead so typical of Cohen irony flashes through repeatedly. "I told you When I came I was a stranger" ... And of course, his language, this vertigo metaphors, repeatedly drives the scenes of everyday life, which he sings in unknown worlds.

This CD is a shame as the background music. As a good picture you need a (acoustic) white wall in order to unfold the whole effect.