#7 on the 2018 Bacon Top 31 — Cat Power

Wanderer by Cat Power

Cat Power has been soothing the world with her sultry voice for over twenty years, since her debut Dear Sir in 1995. The trajectory of her creative output has steadily slowed since that first album, having three releases between 1995-1996, then two releases two years apart, two releases three years apart, one four years after that, and then finally Wanderer, her tenth album, six years later. Despite ten albums in 23 years, only two of those have been released since the Top 31 began in 2009, and I don’t think I’ve once mentioned her in that span. Her 2012 album, Sun, did not impress me. And yet, I’ve listened to her music pretty regularly since her critically-acclaimed 1998 breakthrough album, Moon Pix, recorded with a couple members of the Dirty Three to great effect. She did have a track on the oft-mentioned Dessner-brother produced Red Hot compilation Dark Was the Night, which was #10 in 2009, and that’s the closest I’ve ever come to discussing Cat Power.

This post has been a long-time coming, I suppose. Her real name is Chan Marshall, and apparently she was discovered opening for Liz Phair in 1993 by members of Sonic Youth and Two Dollar Guitar. That’s a good way to get started on the right foot in the music business. Since the above-mentioned Moon Pix she’s had a slew of amazing albums that all would have been on the Top 31 had it existed, including 2003’s You Are Free (which happens to feature Dave Grohl and Eddie Vedder) and The Greatest in 2006 (featuring phenomenal Mempis-based studio musicians for an entirely unique feel).

Marshall has a way of stripping down a song to its bare essence, drawing you ever closer to the speaker in an attempt to hear the parting of her lips and the dancing of her tongue on the back of her teeth. In addition to her own fantastic songs, she is the master of the cover, having released two full albums of covers (The Covers Record in 2000 and Jukebox in 2008). Her gift is to make these songs her own, barely recognizable from the original. My favorite track on Wanderer is actually a cover as well, of of Rihanna’s 2012 song “Stay”. You must hear this song — thankfully there’s a video for you to be able to do just that.

The video above, for the song “Woman,” features Lana Del Rey on harmonies and background vocals. It was the first single for this new record, and it does a good job of summing up Cat Power and her ups and downs over the years quite well:

I’m a woman of my word, now haven’t you heard?
My word’s the only thing I’ve ever needed
I’m a woman of my word, now you have heard
My word’s the only thing I truly need

Her word, above all else, is what has carried her through many different phases of her life, and will continue to do so. If you’ve not heard of Cat Power before now, you’ve been living under a rock. Wanderer is a perfect way to get into her, and that album will bleed into her previous records quite nicely. You’d best get started — you have a lot of ground to cover.

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8. Tell Me How You Really Feel by Courtney Barnett
9. The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs by Wye Oak
10. Ruins by First Aid Kit
11. Cocoa Sugar by Young Fathers
12. Loner by Caroline Rose
13. Big Red Machine by Big Red Machine
14. I’ll Be Your Girl by The Decemberists
15. The More I Sleep the Less I Dream by We Were Promised Jetpacks
16. Joy as an Act of Resistance by IDLES
17. Hell-On by Neko Case
18. Superorganism by Superorganism
19. Living in Extraordinary Times by James
20. Thank You for Today by Death Cab for Cutie
21. Black Panther: The Album by Kendrick Lamar
22. Suspiria (Music for the Luca Guadagnino Film) by Thom Yorke
23. Merrie Land by The Good, the Bad & the Queen
24. Room 25 by Noname
25. WARM by Jeff Tweedy
26. God's Favorite Customer by Father John Misty
27. Vessel by Frankie Cosmos
28. For Ever by Jungle
29. Twerp Verse by Speedy Ortiz
30. Remain in Light by Angélique Kidjo
31. This One’s for the Dancer & This One’s for the Dancer’s Bouquet by Moonface

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#11 on the 2013 Musical Bacon Calendar

If You Leave by Daughter

On the bubble of the Top 10, here’s English trio Daughter to darken and depress your day. Igor Haefeli plays soundscapes and rolling hills of notes on his guitar. Drummer Remi Aguilella builds the excitement with well-timed, sparse, tribal-like percussion. And lead singer / songwriter Elena Tonra, with her diminutive frame and whisper-like voice, makes the band feel somewhat like that older dog at the pound that you just can’t resist taking home to give some proper love. Tonra plays a guitar in the band as well, her pad-of-the-fingers picking creates notes that are the perfect counterpart to Haefeli’s sonic chorus.

The band suffers from the Sigur Rós Malady, where each song starts off super quiet and builds to a crescendo, a cacophony of sound that’s as exciting and energetic as a lightning storm. And that’s not the only thing they have in common with the band from Iceland. I got to see Daughter play at Neumos back in May, which is when I discovered that Haefeli plays his guitar with a bow, just like Jónsi does. In my review of the show, I summed up Tonra’s voice thusly:

Tonra’s voice is the most beautiful whisper you’ll ever hear, both quiet and pitch perfect, subdued just enough to make everyone in the audience lean, actively working to not miss that one amazing tone we know is coming. Tonra doesn’t appear to suffer from stage fright — she’s not one to put her back to us — but all other signs point to her being a new kind of Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, in poise and stage presence. Tonra’s stunning vocal range is in the higher registers (unlike Cat Power), but her style of singing intimate songs of breakup and heartache is a perfect match.

The encore of that performance was one for the ages, but unfortunately they played a song you won’t find on the album:

The band played a good array of songs from all three recorded works, and when they finally left the stage after their most well-known song, “Youth,” I got the impression there would be no encore. What could they possibly play, as we’d heard everything we expected to hear? After we gave our best, longest, loudest cheers, the band did indeed come back out on stage, to play the one song I’d heard before and expected them to not play: a cover of Daft Punk’s brand new single “Get Lucky.” When they played the song in late April on BBC One, I’ll admit I listened to it many many times on repeat. So much so that now, when I hear the original Daft Punk version, it sounds like a cover of the Daughter version. Hearing their cover live on stage at Neumos was the perfect capper for the evening.

You may be thinking it’s impossible that there could be ten albums better than this one that came out this year. Just wait and see, the best is yet to come!

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12. Pedestrian Verse by Frightened Rabbit
13. The Silver Gymnasium by Okkervil River
14. The Next Day by David Bowie
15. Reflektor by Arcade Fire
16. We Are the 21st Century Ambassadors of Peace & Magic by Foxygen
17. Lanters by Son Lux
18. Howlin’ by Jagwar Ma
19. Impersonator by Majical Cloudz
20. Dream Cave by Cloud Control
21. Mole City by Quasi
22. Phantogram by Phantogram
23. Julia With Blue Jeans On by Moonface
24. Uncanney Valley by The Dismemberment Plan
25. Event II by Deltron 3030
26. Wise Up Ghost by Elvis Costello and The Roots
27. Us Alone by Hayden
28. Pure Heroine by Lorde
29. Shaking the Habitual by The Knife
30. False Idols by Tricky
31. Let’s Be Still by The Head and the Heart

2012 Musical Bacon Calendar
2011 Musical Bacon Calendar
2010 Musical Bacon Calendar
2009 Musical Bacon Calendar