Worth the wait: Cat Power – Sun

Chan Marshall, aka Cat Power, released her latest album, Sun, yesterday. Naturally the entire world has gone mental for this, I mean we have been waiting for the last four years for a new album, and six years for some all-out original material. I just really love her, she can do no wrong (yes that’s the teenage obsession flooding back again), so I thought I’d let you all know how great she is.

First off, the album, how fucking good is that? Highlights include Manhattan, Nothing But Time, 3,6,9… well actually I don’t think there’s a single track that I’d skip on the entire album. Tell you what though, Nothing But Time is a cracker.

Weighing in at 10 minutes and 55 seconds, this track is a long long, but that’s good news. The thing fizzes with synthesisers and Iggy Pop appears in the middle, sort of dangling off of the two-chord melody. Oh, and it’s a tribute to David Bowie’s Heroes… if you don’t believe me, just listen to it. It’s the perfect response to Heroes, now, if we could just coax Bowie out of retirement, the two could do something very special. Chan did cover Space Oddity not so very long ago…

I also love Manhattan, I mean, I really love that track. I want to go there, I want to wander about wistfully, moping about how it all used to be… Ahh Chan, I’m so glad you’re back. Manhattan is a smooth twinkly track, it just sweeps along and then, seeing as this one isn’t 11 minutes long, demands to be put on repeat. It’s a great canvas for Chan’s grainy vocals and, as always, you can do nothing but listen. There’s something about her voice that just stops you dead and commands your attention and I don’t really know what it is but it’s a powerful skill to have.

Overall, Sun is a pretty light album for Chan, if you’ve listened to some of her darker recordings, you can see exactly how light. Sun is dripping with synthesisers choppy drum beats and some of Chan’s best vocals yet I reckon. As she always has chosen to do in the past, Chan made this record without a producer. It’s a great idea: a point-blank refusal to rely on anyone else creatively, she also learnt all the instruments on the album. The result: Six stars out of five.

In other news…

There is now a teaser video for album track Cherokee, which was released for free a couple of weeks ago. In the video, Chan appears to have blonde hair… the haircut we knew about, but it looks like she’s gone platinum before her album’s had the chance to…

So that’s the end of this particular ramble. I’m just very happy to have a new Cat Power album to listen to as I go about my life. Two days in and it’s already a soundtrack staple…

More free downloads from Cat Power

Cat Power has already given us Ruin from her upcoming album, Sun, for free and now’s she’s doing the same with the album’s opeining track, Cherokee.

Just click here, sign up for the mailing list and you’ll be sent a link for a free download of Cherokee and a remix of it. Buy none, get two free…

Sun is Chan Marshall’s first album since 2008’s Jukebox and her first full length album of original material since The Greatest in 2006. It comes out in the UK/Europe on 10th September.

Cat Power – Ruin, album announcement for ‘Sun’

Well this was a nice way to rejoin the land of the online living after work today, Chan Marshall, well Matador I suppose, have plastered the announcement video for Cat Power’s upcoming album Sun all over the internet, especially seeing as it’ll be her first full-length album of original material in six long years. So wham, BAM, here’s the video:

She’s back, the hair is shorter and she’s now everybody’s new jam. What’s more album track Ruin is available to download for free here. In an interview I saw in The Quietus she said she’d learnt to play all the necessary instruments for this record, feeling like she needed to be musically independant, so in so far as this initial little teaser track goes I think she’s done a pretty good job and at the same time manages to tell everyone to shut up and stop moaning because “some people ain’t got shit to eat”. The thing my teenage self always loved about her, and maybe the best thing about the mysterious Chan Marshall, only mysterious because she doesn’t want the world to know everything about her, is her attitude, and she gets away with it briliantly every time.

Well anyway, very much looking forward to the release of Sun, on Matador, on 3rd September, which appears to be lightyears from now, oh well, hold your breath for another teaser or two.

Here’s the tracklist while you wait:

‘Cherokee’
‘Sun’
‘Ruin’
‘3,6,9’
‘Always On My Own’
‘Real Life’
‘Human Being’
‘Manhattan’
‘Silent Machine’
‘Nothin But Time’
‘Peace And Love’

New Cat Power album ‘Sun’ finally on the horizon

Well this has been a morning of discovery for me, firstly somebody I follow on twitter retweets Chan Marshall, I wasn’t even aware that she had Twitter! Secondly the tweet said “I HAVE FINISHED MY RECORD.” and was followed by another, “IT IS CALLED “SUN”.”.

After years, YEARS of waiting for a follow up to Jukebox, the object of 99% of my teenage musical affection is finally going to release a new album at some point in the near future. Release dates haven’t even been mentioned either by Chan Marshall or by Matador Records, so that will be the next surprise.

Just in time for Christmas last year this appeared on Matador’s website, if like me you missed it too:

Video directed by Giovanni Ribisi and featuring renowned boxer and politician Manny Pacquiao and the track, King Rides By performed by Cat Power, can still be downloaded direct from Matador for a small donation towards The Festival of Children and the Ali Forney Center, well 99 cents, definitely worth it.

A lot of people got very angry when Chan cancelled a show in Israel in February this year, some on myspace even comparing her to fascist dictators, however according to the reaction on Twitter last night to the news of her newly finished record, her well-established following (yeah it’s a bit ‘cult’) hasn’t even thought about holding that or anything else against her.

Well that’s all for now, my eyes and ears will be kept firmly peeled for news of a release date for what will now be, for me, one of the most anticipated records of recent times, and by that I definitely mean the last decade at least, what can I say, I’m still in love with her.

[update: RELEASE DATE: 11th September in the US and 10th in the UK]

[a better update: RELEASE DATE NOW SET FOR 3rd/4th September depending on which side of the Atlantic ocen you live on, see new post about album track Ruin here]