CAT POWER: MOON PIX (1998)
1) American Flag; 2) He Turns
Down; 3) No Sense; 4) Say; 5) Metal Heart; 6) Back Of Your Head; 7) Moonshiner;
8) You May Know Him; 9) Colors And The Kids; 10) Cross Bones Style; 11) Peking
Saint.
This is it, the moment of truth — if you don't
like Moon Pix, you're probably more
of a dog power than a cat power person; and if you like, but don't love Moon Pix (like I do), you must have
serious problems with quite a lot of modern musical art, because Moon Pix is really it: a record that is modern-artsy to the extreme, a set of
semi-improvisational, stream-of-consciousness-like rambling confessions that
sound like they were recorded in a hazy trance. In fact, I don't know about
«recorded», but legend has it that many of the songs were written by Chan in
one night under the influence of a disturbing nightmare, involving dark spirits
and demons and all sorts of stuff that, you know, can sometimes happen to a
girl from Georgia overdosing on New York City. Perhaps that is why the album is
called Moon Pix, even if the only
song on the album with a direct reference to ʽmoonʼ is ʽMoonshinerʼ, and that's
a different kind of moon.
Anyway, if I were a mean, evil person, I would
have certainly taken the chance to mock the songwriter on account of a lyric
like "It must be the colors / And the kids / That keep me alive / 'Cause
the music is boring me to death". Honestly, when listening to Moon Pix, this is precisely the feeling
I get — the music is boring me to death, but the colors of the album are what saves it from mediocrity. ʽColors And
The Kidsʼ is basically just three piano chords put on repeat for about six and
a half minutes, and her voice, fading in and out of the picture, sometimes
cracking from excessive emotionality and sometimes dissipating from lack of
training, is no great shakes either — but the first thing you realize with
surprise is that somehow, this does not annoy your aural nerves (the only thing
that does annoy me a bit is the sound
of the piano lid closing at the end: cheap trick! cheap trick!), and from
there, you can slowly build up appreciation for the odd atmosphere that she
constructs, that good old optimistic pessimism, or pessimistic optimism,
whatever, with just a touch of laziness and apathy because, you know, the
universe is expanding or something like that, so what does everything else
matter?
My biggest problem is that, even though she is
now in Australia and recording with a completely different band, and the
production is relatively hi-fi and the instrumentation relatively diverse
(there's even a separate flute player), the music is still not up to par —
mostly standard folk and blues patterns without any innovative or personal
touches — and that, for all her talent, Chan is still refusing to take singing
lessons, metaphorically speaking. I know I should be falling over my head with
songs like ʽMetal Heartʼ and ʽCross Bones Styleʼ, but I am unable to perceive
them as «magical», like so many fans do — pleasant, yes, mildly disturbing,
yes, but nothing that would cut across the heart like a razorblade. Even ʽCross
Bones Styleʼ, which is supposedly a dark folk lament over the horrible fates of
diamond miners in South Africa (impossible to tell from the lyrics, but you can tell the song is mournful and
disturbing), basically just rolls by like a chilly breeze — some jangly drony
acoustic chords, some double-tracked folksy harmonies with high-low modulation,
nothing too flashy and absolutely no secrets to come undone over the course of
repeated listens. And repeated listens are necessary, because eventually you
come to realize that the only source of real dread and creepiness would be the normality of it all — the total lack of
any sort of flashy sonics or production gimmicks. Not that this wasn't the case
with her previous records as well; it's just that Moon Pix is a clear step forward in terms of sonics and production,
and since there are more instruments and some actual musicians backing her this
time, you'd think you could expect something different, but no! You can't,
really.
Actually, you know, I'm not exactly right when
I speak about a lack of gimmicks — every reviewer of Moon Pix feels it necessary to remind the reader of the backwards
drum loop on ʽAmerican Flagʼ that was, believe it or not, sampled from the
Beastie Boys' ʽPaul Revereʼ (but why?); or of Belinda Woods' flute work on the
folk ballad ʽHe Turns Downʼ (pretty, but quite low in the mix, and not really
making much of a difference); or of the thunder bursts on ʽSayʼ, which make you
feel locked up for safety in the room with the artist while nature is having a
wild ball on the outside... but then again, almost every song on the album
feels private and intimate anyway. So, essentially, the gimmicks are there, but
they just don't matter.
What matters is the combination of largely
predictable, though tasteful, folk and blues patterns, hookless vocals,
ambiguous lyrics, and morose atmosphere. The one album that somehow springs to
mind in connection with this is not even by a female artist — it is Nick
Drake's Pink Moon, and guess what, I
didn't even realize when I thought of it that it also had the word
"moon" in the title. The difference being that Nick played a better
guitar, had a better singing voice, wrote better songs, and could work that
"don't-mind-me-I'm-just-humming-this-tune-in-the-corner" vibe much
more efficiently than Chan Marshall, who can still occasionally come across as
too narcissistic. Still, she's got one on him at least — she sounds a bit more
human and relatable, whereas Nick was basically a Christ-like figure: you
didn't really have a good idea of how to approach him, how to address him,
whether he shits rose petals etc. — tons of mystery. This is where Marshall's
«ordinariness» in terms of playing and singing really works well for her.
I give the record a thumbs up because I appreciate the
rugged charisma, the lyrical originality, and the unquestionable progress in
«formal» terms (more stylistic diversity, better production, interesting bits
of studio experimentation), but I do wish that something more would remain in
my head than the line "Yellow hair, you're a funny bear" that somehow
got me trapped in a love-hate relationship — moving, yes, but also sounding a
bit like the blueprint for everything that I hate about SIKC (Sentimental Indie
Kid Culture), you know, that part of the universe where you have to get sad
only because it's a sin to be happy, or, even worse, when all the bad things
around you are only used as a pretext to get sad, because Sad is Cool. In other
words, color me unconvinced — on a scale of 1 to 10, I'd rate the sadness of Moon Pix about 4 or 5 («not irritating
because the person sounds nice, not genuinely moving because the feel is an
artificial one»). But that's just because I'm fairly jaded on sadness, I guess.
Before we escape "C-A" bands, I'd love to get your take on Camper Van Beethoven. Pretty seminal 80s and 90s band... if you ask the right people, anyway.
ReplyDelete