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Album Review
by SashaS
17-2-2003
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| Cat Power's 'You Are Free' & then some |
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Cat Power: 'You Are Free'
(Matador)
Cat Power’s songs for emo-nudists
Ever since hearing Cat Power’s album ‘You Are Free’ for the first time about a month ago, I’ve been inspired to paint these large minimalist oils of midnight blue with yellow borders and a big, red swoosh in the middle, entitled ‘Can the Ken’. Well, life is a tragedy interspersed with joyous breaks and these rare and preciously perfumed moments are what push us along, the search for another doze, another happiness fix. Otherwise, it’s all a dirge soundtrack to slavery: employment, mortgage, taxman, love, fashion and relationships… Everything out of (one’s) control!?
But, one is free to be miserable, analytical, contrary, cantankerous... Democracy of pain, a garden of delight and rain, the quiet of contemplation, the noise of condemnation is superbly backed by this collection of ingeniously independent odes. The Chan Marshall’s sixth album is full of sounds of purity, spookily tuned, capturing fugitive feelings the way Nick Cave does without churning out ‘murder ballads’; these songs are fantasised executions of encounters, intimacy, affairs, characters.
The simplicity of a guitar or a piano only backed singing, like the opening ‘I Don’t Blame You’ or ‘Baby Doll’ or ‘Keep On Runnin’’, sounds really intense due to the intrinsic affection, passion and soulfullness. And then, Cat toys with the more common ‘pop’ fodder by twisting its spirit until annihilation of the triviality. Is this the blues she’s singing? Venturing on truly mournfully, sensually, pensively, velvety, fervently.
‘Free’ is the greatest surprise on the album with its jolliness, élan and funkiness, one of the rare songs in the trad-sense (instrumentation, bridges, arrangement) with Dave Grohl (of Foo Fighters) guest-drumming and, apparently, screaming ‘Free, free!’ at the end. There are more tracks of deeper pumping persuasion: ‘Speak For Me’, ‘He War’, ‘Shaking Paper’… Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder is present as well (on concluding ‘Evolution’) but this is one-woman show: quirky, compelling, hypnotic, as diverse (a man would like his sex-escapades to be but) as life actually is.
Delivered in an expressive voice that shifts sonics from seducing your Eustachians (‘Werewolf’), to stroppy (‘Fool’), to eerie: ‘Good Woman’ becomes out of a tonal clash to evolve into this psyche-Gothic-country tune that is more atmospheric than the collected works of Edgar Allan Poe. Cattitude (can’t resist!) of haunting quality. What Chan provides is a release Pot-Noodle-pop can never even have a nightmare about, depth and artiness that are seldom at the centre of contemporary songwriting.
Somehow, at this time of war mongering, this album echoes with missing words, the ones we can’t find within the heart-head mix-up caused by the confusing propaganda. You can find peace and refuge here, mellow and torrid imagery amid these lullabies of emo-nudity, an array of senses-mental self-examination, internal stripping until as naked as the truth itself. There is no bypassing complimentary fatalist’s overview as this Lady of the Lake supplies ‘swords’ galore.
‘You Are Free’ lets you know that you are – spiritually, so go, grab some gear and stretch the canvass! I wish I were you because you are yet to hear this album. What revelations, and possible inspirations await… (I’m still attempting to get my painting right.) And beware – ‘Make latté, not war!’
9/10
SashaS
17-2-2003
Cat Power’s album ‘You Are Free’ is released 17 Feb. 2003 by Matador
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