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(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Summary.
Cat Power, the project of Chan Marshall, debuted with the somber and spartan Myra Lee (1996) and the desolate, suffocating What Would The Community Think (1996). The latter formulated an art that took the shy pessimism of auteurs such as Nick Drake and Laura Nyro to a new dimension of introspection. Its sketchy vignettes and self-analyses coined a subtle and almost embarrassing format, that turned the listener into a voyeaur peeping through the keyhole. Marshall was, at the same time, the cameraman and the actress: she played the role of a tormented heroine while she was filming herself playing that role. Her songs were as much acting as they were singing. Marshall's cinematic genius peaked with the song cycle of Moon Pix (1998), enhanced with the ambient, free-form arrangements of Dirty Three's Jim White and Mick Turner. The emotional intensity packed by her half whisper in the gloomy lieder of You Are Free (2003) bordered on the suicidal.
Full bio.
Cat Power is the project of Chan Marshall, originally from the deep South (Georgia), the
daughter of a travelling musician, but initiated to music in New York around 1992.
The EP Dear Sir (Runt, 1995) was a revelation, thanks to songs such as
3 Times and Headlights, where the protagonist voice is a cross
between the rock shaman a` la Patti Smith, a psychedelic contralto a` la
Grace Slick and a bored Lydia Lunch. The album is made dark and
ominous not only by lyrics that are ferocious to say the least, but also by the
funereal arrangements designed by guitarist Tom Foljahn (of
Two Dollar Guitar) and drummer
Steve Shelley (of Sonic Youth),
in particular the hypnotic Redskin tom-tom of Rockets and the insistent
strumming a` la Velvet Underground of Itchyhead and Headlights,
songs where the suspended vocals of the singer induce a harrowing effect.
The overall mood is that of Smog.
In 1996 Marshall released Myra Lee (Smells Like), recorded in 1995,
and What Would The Community Think (Matador).
Despite the fact that the accompaniment is just her guitar and
Sonic Youth's Steve Shelley on drums,
the former is the first mature packaging of her art.
The setting is only apparently sober and somber: in practice, each song
employs a different device to establish an emotional context, and each song
evolves rapidly, usually increasing tension and meaning as the sound gets
louder and deeper.
Enough, full of twists and fits, of ebbs and flows, is the soundtrack
to a stream of consciousness that is devastated by angst, frustration,
desire, just a few seconds before a nervous breakdown.
The forceful We All Die, propelled by a manic beat a` la Indian
war-dance, soars and sinks, halfway between dream and overdose.
Another pow-wow beat torments the confused shout of Rockets.
The mournful tolling of Great Expectations summons the ghost of
Nico.
Faces reveals the dilated emptiness of Tim Buckley's angelic grief, while Not What You Want is all anger and
despair, a series of painful spasms.
Marshall covers a lot of ground with a minimum of means.
What Would The Community Think (Matador) is one of her masterpieces.
She begins by proving how an artist can be both subdued and relentless at the
same time, with the devastating Nick Drake-ian confession of
In This Hole. She then ventures into the jittery and depressed
Good Clean Fun, somewhere between Laura Nyro and
Lisa Germano.
And that's the land where she dwells for most of the album, spinning the
dreadful yarns of The Fate of the Human Carbine,
the desolate lament of King Rides By,
the suffocating sobs of
Water & Air (bordering on Tim Buckley's psychedelic abandon).
The multiple voices of The Coat is Always On inject an element
of schizophrenia in a clinical case that is already worthy of a mental hospital.
The music is never trivial, often complex and always to the point.
A little intellectual jamming of guitars lends
What Would the Community Think the quality of a nervous breakdown.
Alien noises permeate the solemn madrigal of Bathysphere, making
insecurity sound like sheer neurosis.
The drums help her austere howling in Nude As The News and
the revised Enough,
two of the most theatrical and diverse pieces.
Her sketchy vignettes and self-analyses
coin a subtle and almost embarrassing format, that turns the listener into
a voyeaur peeping through the keyhole.
Marshall is, at the same time, the cameraman and the actress: she plays the
role of a tormented heroine and films herself playing that role.
These songs are as much acting as they are singing.
Marshall's cinematic genius peaked with the song cycle of
Moon Pix (Matador, 1998), featuring
Dirty Three's Jim White and Mick Turner.
Their spare, ambient, free-form arrangements are the perfect match for
Marshall's deeply personal tunes.
Both dejected and warm, haunting and lush lieder like
American Flag and Cross Bones Style revive a tradition
that was thought extinct after Van Morrison's Astral Weeks.
The combo plays them in a detached manner, borrowing from blues and country,
and often slumping onto a languid, dirty, psychedelic haze.
A softer, gentler Joni Mitchell comes to mind in the piano-based
Colors And The Kids, possibly the emotional center of the album.
The flute guides He Turns Down, a hushed, nervous penance worthy of
Nick Drake.
Say and Moonshiner bleed
Lisa Germano's shy intimism mixed with Sinead O'Connor's passion.
Marshall boasts one of the least remarkable voices in the history of singer
songwriters, but at the same time it makes for one of the most moving,
mesmerizing and original experiences in rock music, like when she
croons the slow, waltzing dirge of No Sense
The Covers Record (Matador, 2000) is a disappointing minor work from
a musician who was expected to produce a masterpiece. Her recording attitude
mirrors her performing attitude, one of unpredictable highs and lows.
Marshall's return to form and her first collection of original material in
a long time, You Are Free (Matador, 2003) completes the ideal trilogy
of masterpieces with What Would The Community Think and Moon Pix.
Her colloquial tone resonates, more than ever, with the voices of the most
haunting and poignant singers of popular music, from
Nico to Tim Buckley.
The emotional intensity packed by her half whisper in a simple piano-based
lullaby such as I Don't Blame You
or in a tender country-like mantra such as Half of You
is simply harrowing.
Not to mention the free-form, mournful trance of Good Woman,
that resembles one of Tim Buckley's suspended dirges, or the gloomy
portrait of Names, that borders on the suicidal.
Strings cry their heart out in the funereal waltz of Werewolf,
while the voice seems to sink in existential torpor.
The overall feeling is of austere chamber music being performed in a smoky
cabaret in the years before World War II.
The intimate paralysis of these quasi-classical odes is electrifying.
Which makes the "rocking" songs all the more powerful.
Free soars like a generational anthem, propelled by a hard, insistent
guitar riff and subtle sonic touches.
Speak For Me is even more virulent and rhythmic,
delivered with an attitude that would please both
riot-grrrrls and Patti Smith.
Regardless of mood, pace and sense, Marshall's songs maintain a delicate
and solemn tunefulness (particularly Fool and another piano-based gem,
Maybe Not). And, yet, there is no respite from the desolation.
A terrifying sense of loneliness and inertia exhales from
the bluesy Baby Doll and Keep on Runnin'
Appropriately, the album closes with a piano that does not play a melody,
but simply ticks like a clock (Evolution).
The lyrics are, by far, her weakest point. But, musically, she has few rivals
in 2003.
Speaking For Trees (Matador, 2004) is a film on DVD, directed by
Mark Borthwick, in which Cat Power plays some of her songs and some covers,
plus a CD with only one
18-minute long song, Willie Deadwilder with Cat Power on vocals and
M Ward on guitar. The song is a tender lullaby of the kind that
Donovan used to spin, a melody with echoes of
Don McLean's American Pie as well as
of Bob Dylan's Blowing in the Wind,
and of countless nostalgic laments, over a gentle, luminescent tapestry
of guitar strumming.
Having set the (fragile) standard of "intimate" for the entire decade,
Chan Marshall recorded The Greatest (Matador, 2006) with some of Memphis'
session musicians,
a grand gesture that is commonly employed to reconnect the young lion with the
old masters, a feat perfectly achieved in
Love and Communication (a festival of horns, strings, and keyboards),
Living Proof (for organ and horns),
and the saloon atmosphere of Lived In Bars.
Generally speaking, Marshall comes through as musically more assertive with
the catchy Could We, reminiscent of Tamla's soul music, and two
piano and strings showcases, Where Is My Love and The Greatest.
Nonetheless, the emotional intensity shifts gear whenever she intones her
shy dirges, like the
desperate piano and guitar lament of Hate ("I hate myself and I want to die")
or the subliminal The Moon for plain guitar and otherworldly vocals.
Thus, by the end of the album, one misses the old Marshall and regrets
that she tried too hard to be someone else.
Jukebox (2007) is another cover album.
Cat Power opted for synths and dance beats instead of folk-rocking guitars and drums
on Sun (Matador, 2012), the first collection of original material
in over six years, an album that basically anointed her as a contemporary
soul singer. Marshall played most instruments herself and self-produced.
The results can be trivially pleasant (the bubblegum ditty Cherokee)
or pedantically tedious (the languid neo-soul of Sun).
Lyrically dominated by the ethereal nocturnal ballad Manhattan (with a spare accompaniment of repetitive piano notes and skittering beats),
the album's emotional center of mass is
Ruin, with its hypnotic minimalist piano repetition and mantra-like recitation, and one of the loudest techno beats as well as one of the noisiest guitar riffs, which is like having Enya the Rolling Stones and Philip Glass in the same song.
The most reckless idea is the eight-minute lullaby Nothin But Time that, having Iggy Pop on backing vocals, inevitably borrows the decadent tone of David Bowie before soaring into a childish singalong.
Safer are the two cohesive and bouncing peaks:
Silent Machine, a stomping quasi-voodoo interpretation of hard rock of the 1970s,
and the
anthemic pounding square dance and rigmarole Peace and Love (reminiscent of Jay-Z 's 99 Problems).
Despite the sometimes annoying drum-machine, this album contains some of her
best songs.
She also fails, as usual, when the song gets too personal and we're supposed to
listen to the words instead of listening to the music and to her voice.
But, overall, Marshall found a surprising balance of introversion and
extroversion both in the words and in the sounds.
Wanderer (Domino, 2018) was her most haunting album yet, an all-acoustic
album with discreet arrangements.
The a-cappella hymn-like overture Wanderer seems to come from a distance
of decades, an echo in time.
The polka-like In Your Face, a dialogue with a nocturnal jazzy piano, evokes a femme fatale in a smoky cafe.
Just a bit more rocking and bluesier, You Get has a subdued guitar riff that could be seismic in the hands of a metal band, and a natural propulsion that comes from the singing alone (whose smooth melismatic delivery is mesmerizing in itself).
The march-like Woman a` la Nancy Sinatra's These Boots Are Made for Walkin' is caressed by neoclassical cello and jazzed organ and shaken by an anthemic refrain (Lana Del Rey on backing vocals).
The timelessness of these songs is proven by Black, a voice and guitar skit that belongs to an expressionistic cabaret of the 1920s.
And she sounds like a solemn Celtic bard as she intones Robbin Hood.
Her vocal style has matured to the point that she doesn't need any gimmick
to sculpt the most emotional atmospheres.
She barely murmurs the nostalgic Latin-tinged Me Voy, whose refrain is a
wordless cascading lament,
and she harmonizes with echoes of herself in Horizon.
This album couldn't be more different from the electronic dances of Sun.
Maybe motherhood made the difference. At the same time it is not quite
Moon Pix, her folk masterpiece:
Marshall is 46 years old, and that too makes a difference.
We can forgive her a silly cover of Rihanna's silly hit Stay (2012).
Covers (2022) contains musical rewrites of other people's lyrics.
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