Like Rebecca Gates’ The Spinanes, Cat Power is the alias for the Southern bred solo artist Chan Marshall. As a high school dropout opening up for Liz Phair in New York, she met Sonic Youth’s Steve Shelley and Two Dollar Guitar’s Tim Foljahn, who backed her on her first two indie albums. She drew attention on 1996’s What Would The Community Think? for her raw, almost uncomfortably emotional songs. This time around her music is still barely produced, yet much more sleek, thanks partly to the instrumental mastery of The Dirty Three’s Mick Turner and Jim White. Their expressionist soundscapes are a brilliant backdrop for Marshall’s dry, breathy voice. The songs slide along at a slow crawl. If you don’t slow down your personal timescale and stop what you’re doing, the album might just creep away without your noticing it, like the moon disappearing from sight on a cloudy evening. Give it the attention it deserves, and it will reward you with the stunning atmospherics of “Say,” complemented with sounds of thunder that were integrated so subtly you might have thought it was actually storming outside, even if it’s five below zero in January. It was actually recorded in January in Australia, and you can hear the influence of the giant outback skies. A truly haunting album.
September 17, 2025
Chameleons – Arctic Moon (Metropolis)
September 1, 2025
Lathe of Heaven – Aurora (Sacred Bones)
