Artist: Cat Power Release Date: September
1998
Label: Matador Records Running time: 46m 15s
Featuring:
Chan Marshall - Guitar, Piano, Vocals
Mick Turner - Guitar
Jim White - Drums
Andrew Entsch - Bass
Belinda Woods - Flute
~:~
Recorded and Mixed - Sing Sing Studios,
Melbourne,
Australia, Jan.
1998
Arranged, Engineered and Produced by Matt Voigt and Mick Turner
All songs ©1998 Dreading Futures / Doormat Music
Background noise
In
1972, the lead singer and sole original member of
Cat Power was born Charlyn Marie Marshall (Marshall is her father’s name actually; she was born out of wedlock) and she kept the name until she was twelve and opted to drop a few letters. Now called Chan (pronounced "shone"), she left her
Atlanta home at 16, working at a pizza parlor and making up songs in the evening on a hand-me-down acoustic guitar. She moved up to New York at 20, but had little interest in starting a band until a friend from back in
Georgia corralled her into the just forming
Cat Power. Before long, they’d caught the ear of the Matador label, and so Marshall ended up opening for
Liz Phair. Several LPs were born of the new interest in the band (
Myra Lee -- on
Smells Like Records, and
What Would the Community Think?).
Marshall apparently got incredibly disillusioned with the indie music scene after these later encounters with major record labels and too many
Manhattan clubs. Touring was also a pain, on account of Chan’s frequently over-powering nervousness in live performance (which she’s described, ‘
All these people are staring at you and it's like you know when you have a conversation with someone, there's eye contact, but you don't stare. You don't fucking stare at every square inch of their body, their face, their neck, their fingers, their breasts, their butt, their knees, shoes, clothes, their face, sweat, lips’). That horror echoes in her lyrics; who else but a spot-lit
introvert could, in the midst of praise and indie
adulation, still come up with a throwaway, bite-back line like,
"I still have a flame gun / for the cute ones!"
Either way, her upbringing seemed to haunt her in the streets of too-hip NYC, and when two childhood friends died back home this was the last straw for her pent-up constitution, and led to a severe emotional collapse. Three albums into an already hyped, lo-fi career, she pulled up stakes and moved to a remote farmhouse in
Prosperity,
South Carolina with then-boyfriend
Bill Callahan1 (of
Smog; see
Knock Knock LP’s '
Let’s Move To The Country', written during their
shack up). For over a year, she just lived - cooking, taking walks, playing with her cat. Her guitar stayed locked in its case.
The arrangement didn’t take, however. Callahan went out touring again and Marshall felt compelled to '
get away' yet again, this time to
Australia. Before she left though, she’d evidently been itching to get back to music again. While on vacation, the spark to record struck her suddenly. She called two friends, from the
Dirty Three, and in two days recorded eleven songs, which became Moon Pix.
Does it rock? Can I put it on at a party?
Parts do, yes, but this album falls more into the
emotive,
sadcore corner than most people are generally comfortable listening to in a group.
2 It’s pretty damn
heart on your sleeve naked in parts, and so subsequently
really not rigged for festivities of more than five people (who you know well, like the music and/or are out of their tree). Beyond that, though, it makes amazing music for driving slowly at twilight or writing long letters by hand. It’s a summery sort of record though too, despite its
autumnal air of
nostalgia ~ you can actually hear what sound like the rolling thunder of
heat lightning in the background on several tracks (like the end of 'Say' most notably). Open your windows then, if you’re listening at night.
What’s it sound like though?
There are a few moments that recall the cavernous production of early
Cowboy Junkies (circa
Whites Off Earth Now!), though this record is even more stripped-down. Marshall’s lyrical arc is based on evocative phrases and unadulterated emotion, to the point were live audiences frequently grow uncomfortable; think a twee-voiced
Southern Gothic folk guitarist, possessed by the demeanor of
Robert Johnson, and occasionally breaking into the intensity of
Diamanda Galas. That might sound a little
disquieting, but somehow the intimacy and
open air production lends a comfort to the atmosphere (reminds me a bit too of the first
Rachel's offering, where you can hear train sounds in the background); it's as if you were sitting in on the sessions, as opposed to hearing them taped.
What I mean is this record, though recorded on vacation and with two immensely talented musicians from a well-established trio, sounds gracefully
intimate, like a smattering of journal writing turned orchestrated into sound almost by chance. Not chance as in accident, mind you, Marshall’s 28 years old and has already recorded four full LPs, something quite non-random. Rather, this album sounds very much like the sincerely non-premeditated session that it is - deriving a great deal of
resonance from its desert-dry
twang and echo.
Say, for the sake of argument, I love the record? What else might I try?
If you like it
stripped down, you would probably be quite interested in
Movietone’s records,
Low’s
I Could Live In Hope or
Lisa Germano’s
Happiness (the Capitol recording, not the
4AD version). If you like the more dissonant material on this album, go back and check out the earlier Cat Power records, as well as some more recent
P.J. Harvey.
The Songs:
1.
American Flag 3: 30 ~ A bit of a stumbler to open up the album, with a backward drum sample laying the groundwork ~
2. He Turns Down 5: 30 ~ Oddly arranged, flute-framed song about keeping yourself hidden from the world ~
3.
No Sense 4: 50 ~ Amazing, stumbling, half-whispered/half-mumbled, hyper-sensitive ballad - capped with a yelled
What's the Use? - about personal and public
performance - "all the hearts that touch your cheek / How they jump they move they embarrass" ~
4. Say 3: 24 ~ Slow waves of strummed guitar frame Marshall's voice, thunder booming distant in the background, in this rumination on learning
how not to lie ~
5.
Metal Heart 4: 05 ~This track has all the feel of midnight blues confessional: “It's damned if you don't and it's damned if you do / Be true 'cause they'll lock you up in a sad sad zoo” but also seems self-chiding; Marshall’s night terrors seem to have spurred her back to music and her own ambivalence. ~
6. Back of Your Head 3: 43 ~ ~
7.
Moonshiner (Traditional folk ballad) 4: 50 ~ This track is specifically modelled after Bob Dylan’s cover of the song on his
Gaslight Tapes, the notable (and telling) exception being the lines ‘you're already in hell / I wish we could go to hell’ which seem to be Marshall’s own impromptu insertion ~
8. You May Know Him 2: 46 ~ A bit of curve ball, though an awfully simple song, this sounds to be an honest-to-God, non-smirking Letter to God piece, sending thanks for ‘coming through’ ~
9.
Colors and the Kids, 6: 35 ~The show-stopper of the record, just Marshall’s voice and simple piano melody (which could go up against any of
Tori Amos similar pieces). Forlorn, world-weary and nostalgic (written at age 26, mind you), the song’s seems to be about how to take comfort in a world of strangers, while being haunted by memory. ~
10.
Cross Bones Style3 4: 32 ~The most rhythmic of the tracks, the riffs from the
Dirty Three gents being used to looping, ominous effect ~
11.
Peking Saint 2: 24 ~ ~
1 These two must’ve been a hoot together at parties.
2 I had the previous LP,
Myra Lee, on at my girlfriend’s birthday party, and at one point all conversation stopped, as the last song was playing, a particularly sparse dirge which peaks mid-song with Marshall screaming the lyrics (“
Not What You Want”, if you’ve heard the album, you likely know it). Only thing is, the way it was recorded, with a single
parabolic microphone, it sounds like she’s on the other side of a wall. One of my guests turned to me, and only half-joking said, “Do you hear that? We’ve got to help that poor girl?”
3 Cat Power’s only video song, bizarrely enough, was inspired by Marshall meeting two orphaned homeless boys from
Cape Town,
South Africa who parents had been killed in post-apartheid lawlessness.