leonardcohenforum.com

My copy of Popular Problems arrived on vinyl the other day, and whilst I perused the sleeve, I realised that I didn't recognise any of the band names.
What's happened to Sharon Robinson et al?
Or does he always record with a different band to the live one?
It seems odd to me that he'd suddenly change from such a well functioning batch of musicians.

10newtours wrote:...does he always record with a different band to the live one?...

Yes. Cohen has almost never recorded a studio album with any of his touring bands, aside from maybe having some of them play or sing on a couple tracks (with the exception of Ten New Songs, which was a full collaboration with Sharon Robinson). This practice is nothing new, and certainly not at all odd.

It does have Alexandru Bublitchi. And since Sharon Robinson has a new solo album coming out soon, it's not hard to figure out why she's been busy/otherwise occupied.

I'm guessing that the way Leonard Cohen prefers to work these days, in his home studio over a lengthy period of time, makes it difficult to use musicians who don't actually live in Los Angeles. It's not like they can fly in for a day or two and knock it out in the studio. I trust though that if he goes on tour again, we'll see many familiar faces onstage.