Photo by Knotan

Stockholm-based singer, pianist, and composer Nelly Klayman-Cohen, using the moniker Rotem Geffen, conjures up a refined yet raw dream world with her music. 

With a nod towards a more reserved and minimal approach to lyricism, her clever delivery is amplified by more wistful inflections. She is keenly aware of the prismatic colorations of her voice and pushes her vocal timbres to distorted undulations. In lyrics that alternate between Hebrew, German and English, she works with fragments and memories.

Her songwriting is coupled with her deft approach to timbre and orchestration, joined by some of Stockholm’s most innovative improvising musicians: Isak Hedtjärn, Milton Öhrström, Vilhelm Bromander, Patric Thorman, Josef Alin, Katt Hernandez and Leo Svensson Sander.

Her new album The Night is the Night follows her critically acclaimed debut album, You Guard the Key (Zeon Light 2021). The lyrics delve into memory, love, grief, and the poetics of the night. Together, the songs form a cohesive, multilingual dialogue. The poet Paul Celan plays a special role: the title track is based on one of his poems, and an intertextual and intimate dialog with his work takes place. On the album, she has worked together with producer and keyboardist Alex Zethson and co-producer Anton Toorell. The result is an album with varied and dynamic instrumentation, where the songs are imbued with a naïve shimmer that is balanced by darkness, depth, and subtle intensity – in both lyrics and music.