at a glance...

Hometown: Atlanta, GA
Debut: early '90s

Personnel:
Chan Marshall -vocals, guitars, piano, flute
Mick Turner -guitars
Jim White -percussion, loops

Bands in the family :
Dirty Three, Sonic Youth, Two Dollar Guitar, and Tren Brothers

Notes:
Cat Power's first single, in 1994, was "Headlights" on The Making of Americans. Runt in Italy put out the nine-song 10" "Dear Sir" in '95. Marshall's first full-length, Myra Lee, was on Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelly's label, Smells Like Records. Moon Pix is Cat Power's second album for Matador Records, the first was 1996 's What Would the Community Think?. Several singles have been released, including a split-single with Guv'ner, and a collaboration with God is My Co-Pilot.

Links:
Cat Power Interview

Also check this Cat Power site

Chan Marshall, the architect of Cat Power, has a unique voice that writers stumble over themselves to describe. Invariably words like "raw," "hushed," and "cathartic" pop up, none quite doing justice to her unique style. On her third full-length for Matador records, she trades in the efforts of former backing musicians Tim Foljahn (Two Dollar Guitar) and Steve Shelley (Sonic Youth) for a fresher perspective from Dirty Three musicians Jim White and Mick Turner. Her lyrics are even more evocative, her voice even more assured, and her guitar, buttressed by Turner's, rambles around environments that seem specially landscaped for her moody, bluesy, southern gothic musings.

Moon Pix isn't a pop record, but the songs will catch you and cut you deeply: a certain phrasing, a slow build that knows when to wait and just how often a line should repeat without seeming repetitive - all the elements are there, serving little purposes that add up to a resounding storm of emotion and fragile beauty. The denser, sturdier structures of "American Flag," and "Cross-Bones Style," both showcase a new, almost trip-hop direction with percussive loops and multitracked vocals. The plaintive piano on "Colors and the Kids" ("It must be the colors and the kids that keep me alive, because the music is boring me to death"), and flute on "He Turns Down" ("Holding on for someone feels like holding on too long") underscore the resoundingly quiet magic of Cat Power.

Simultaneously self-effacing and proud, life-loving and pained, Chan Marshall builds on the mythic, fragile aura that has surrounded her since her unlikely foray into indie-rock. Listening to Cat Power, you feel you understand her, and her you, in a way beyond words. She scratches at wounds, bloodletting feeling in a way that is universal, in a way that matters, in a way that never seems sappy or self-involved, in a way that enables her to do a traditional song like "Moonshiner" (she's also covered Hank Williams, Peter Jefferies, and Smog) and make it her own without theiving. She sings the notes that no one knew existed, and she says the darndest things. Some of them you may not want to hear, but you'll thank her for finding the right words.

If you like Cat Power, check out:
Cat Power The Covers Record
Smog Dongs Of Sevotion
Van Morrison
Palace Arise Therefore
Edith Frost Calling Over Time
Peter Jefferies
Slint Spiderland
Freakwater
PJ Harvey Is This Desire?

-- Cyndi Elliott

Ink Blot Home
about | archives | contact | links

---

Copyright © 1997-2002 Ink Blot Magazine. All Rights Reserved.