The Kol·lontai: "The most feminist act we have is our basic friendship."

BarcelonaThe rapport and respect are evident. The artistic and personal connection between the two is evident on stage and when they speak to the press. Therefore, it makes perfect sense that Meritxell Gené (Lleida, 1986) and Ivette Navidad (Granollers, 1988), all ten poets and singer-songwriters, have revived the Les Kol·lontai project. Together they have made Adeleradas (Under the Palm Tree, 2024), an album they're performing live in concerts like the one on May 24th at Barcelona's Paral·lel 62, as part of the Barnasants festival program. "Although we live in very different geographical locations, we've been friends on and off stage for many years. The most feminist act we have is our basic friendship. We understand each other very well," Nadal states.

Las Kol·lontai It was born as a project promoted by Barnasants to commemorate the centenary of the Russian Revolution in 2017. The name came from Alexandra Kol·lontai, one of the most important politicians in the early years of Soviet rule. "She was a pioneer in the defense of women's rights," Gené recalls. To honor her, Les Kol·lontai was created, then a quartet made up of Sílvia Comes, Montse Castellà, Meritxell Gené, and Ivette Nadal. They made the album Violet songs (2017) and for a time they also had a life on stage. The project lost momentum until they were offered to restart it as a trio, with Comes, Gené and Nadal, and with this formation they opened Barnasants 2024. "Finally, Ivette and I stayed," says Gené. "Both Meritxell and I thought it was perfectly natural for us two to continue, since we are from the same generation and started in music very young, when there were few female singer-songwriters our age," adds Nadal.

The album's repertoire Adeleradas It includes six adaptations of poems by other poets and two of her own songs. All of this traces "a feminist genealogy" through verses by Nora Albert, Alda Marini, Maria Mercè Marçal, Anna Dodas, and Estefanía Mitre. "Meritxell and I have different favorite poets, and that has allowed us to share different poetic experiences," says Nadal. "We have gone in search of, or have found, literary mothers, poems that have moved us and shocked us. At the same time, they have made us understand that this process of identifying with the poem is the place where you put down your roots, the anchoring place of the poet's voice, and at the same time our own," adds Giné. Both, of course, embrace the yearning for desire in Nora Albert's poem, because "despite all the adversities," they have had "this yearning to move forward."

Musically, they feature production by Valen Nieto and collaborations with Marc Clos and Xarli Oliver. And unlike the previous album, in Adeleradas They combine the more stripped-down format of the singer-songwriter with other sounds. "There's been a pretty significant stylistic shift on this album, and the songs have grown in a way that was also unexpected for us," admits the Ponent singer-songwriter. "With Valen, we've played more with psychedelic sounds, and also with some electronic effects," says the Vallesan singer-songwriter. One of the songs in which the aesthetic change is most noticeable is I am the other, the adaptation of Maria Mercè Marçal's poem that they had already done on their first album. Now, however, they're taking it from a rock perspective and making a version that's "very beautiful and very psychedelic, and with colors that make it shine incredibly live," as Nadal assures.

The poetic power of the original material means that the songs can live on beyond Les Kol·lontai. This is also what Meritxell Gené thinks, having incorporated them into her repertoire as a soloist: "They are poems that have helped us organize ourselves and find our own voice," she says. On the other hand, Ivette Nadal separates the duo more from her personal project. "I see adaptations of poems with more social or feminist themes more for the Les Kol·lontai format than for my live performance, because I do something that has more to do with my emotional life," explains Nadal, who, however, makes an exception with I don't know anything about you, the song she made based on the poem by Alda Merini. "She's an Italian poet closely linked to mental health issues. In fact, many people believe this poem is mine. I feel that I don't know anything about you could be part of one of my albums," says Nadal.