Looking back, it seems like Cat Power's Moon Pix only registered as a minor breakthrough on its release in 1998. Few immediately hailed it as a masterpiece, and few anticipated it would become the influential work it's since grown into. Perhaps because it remained unhobbled by praise and expectation, Moon Pix grew in stature in the ensuing twenty years.
But two decades on, the notoriously reticent, constantly reinventing Cat Power has announced a live revisit of her first album. Exclusively as part of 2018 VIVID Sydney music lineup, Chan Marshall will bring her magnum opus of darkly seething indie rock to the Sydney Opera House.
Moon Pix, a record that sounds like a work of mythology when hearing it today, actually has very strong ties to Australia. At the time of its recording, Marshall was living between Oregon and South Carolina, strongly considering retiring from music after three albums that remain some of the darkest and most magnetic singer-songwriter albums of the 90s. It was in the latter location that she had a terrifying experience - a waking nightmare about being assailed by unnameable and malignant forces - inspiring the majority of the record.
But in January of 1998, it was Melbourne where Marshall went to record the collection of swirling, curlicued songs with Mick Turner and Jim White of Australian post-rock heroes Dirty Three. Their gnarled accompaniments, particularly's White's restless drumming style, became the perfect foil for Marshall's searching, formless songs. Influenced by folk and rock music just as much as she rejects their ancient structures, Cat Power's songs reached new heights on this remarkable record.
The first sound on the album is the backwards drums from The Beastie Boys' 1986 track "Paul Revere." A strange (and uncredited) choice of sample, but ultimately one that creates the woozy, off-kilter centre of "American Flag." From this first track onwards, Marshall projects her voice like a protective barrier. The song's long coda finds her almost scatting "shoop a doop" with gravity and power like a chant.
In contrast to her contemporaries like PJ Harvey or Tori Amos, Cat Power's songs are not barbed, nor focused outwards. Their lyrics meander through evocative, disconnected images that are equally as important as her and her band's restless, inventive playing. Belinda Woods' undulating flute and the sounds of a thunderstorm accentuate "He Turns Down" and "Say" respectively, blurring the line between songs and eerie soundscapes. The spare pieces on the album like "Back of Your Head" and "Peking Saint" give new meaning to the word "haunting."
Famed for her covers of well-known songs, the record's emotional apex "Metal Heart" finds Cat Power throwing in a couple of stray lines from "Amazing Grace" before launching into the record's most satisfying full-band moment - a euphoric leap into a tangle of resonant guitars and fleet-footed drums.
On the spare, unaccompanied, but almost beatific "You May Know Him," it's easy to hear the timid young woman recording the song in the Melbourne studio. Its simplicity and lightness contrast sharply with the sense of isolation that permeates the record, but also gives a strong idea of Cat Power as a performer and her many dimensions as a songwriter.
When I saw Cat Power perform several years ago, she was a free and open-hearted presence on-stage, radiating joy. Reports from other shows around the same time marked her as almost painfully introverted. This unpredictability is part of what makes her thrilling as an artist. The single "Cross Bones Style" and its eye-catching video made an indie star out of Cat Power (and made it clear how cool yellow nail polish is), but fame has never seemed a comfortable fit for soft-spoken Chan Marshall.
It's not clear which version of Cat Power will perform at the Sydney Opera House in May, but given the strength and gravitas of these eleven songs, the celebration of Moon Pix's 20th anniversary is sure to be a thrilling and absorbing tour through a collection that has lost absolutely none of its power in two decades.
See Cat Power performing Moon Pix at the Sydney Opera House with original collaborators Jim White and Mick Turner on Thursday May 31st. Tickets will be available soon.
