One of the beauties of listening to an album is the timely appreciation of it. You may not fall in love with some albums instantaneously, but upon future spins, you begin to see their beauty and their relevance. An album may be timely for nursing that heartbreak, giving you some ear-peace from all the applomb of commercial music, or just to soothe a long day's work. In those times of need, music comes in various forms to surprise and embrace you.
I was in the mood for some unintrusive music. I needed a comforting voice, some slow songs with little strain in vocals, and as little technical touch-ups and as organic a sound as possible. While searching high and low for the usual comforts of k.d lang's "Hymns of the 49th Parallel" (which is a great great covers album i must say. one of my all-time fav albums), I chanced upon Cat Power's "The Covers Record". It was what I needed, and more. From then on, I fell for the album, months after its purchase.
Chan marshall, better known as Cat Power, sings like a creature of the night. A seductress lulling you into a lair of intoxication. Most of the tracks are slow, and I mean, REAL slow. It's even slower than jazz. Which is part of what makes it all the more mesmerising: there's a end-of-world quality to these songs. It recalls those Western movies, when they play the images in slo-mo. The songs here can easily fit into those moments with its sense of emergency, as if something is brewing. Even so, there's no rush at all. Cat's delivery is a slow, almost menacing, growl, that sounds very hazy and smoky. Most of the tracks were set to sporadic piano playing. This simple arrangement gives great precedence to the lyrics and the delivery, which cant be said for what you hear on radio nowadays with rap and hip-hop and over-produced songs raging all over.
That said, this album is not for everyone. I suggest youtubing first.
The album plays against a backdrop of crowd coming and going as I listen to it on my way to work. Slow down, and take a sight. You'll find that there's much to be appreciated.
Today, news of a dear friend's mother's death shocked me; it was an accident in Malacca. I hope she stays strong and pulls through.
