THIS WEEK: BANDS I’LL SEE ON FRIDAY AT THE ‘PALOOZA
“Metal Heart“
from the album Moon Pix
1998
iTunes
September 23, 1998:
Moon Pix is the kind of album that just melts into ambient noise unless you really listen to it, listen without also talking on the phone or reading a magazine or playing on the computer. The album’s 11 songs are so slow, spare, and understated that they seem to be coming from some Southern Gothic music box. Chan Marshall, Cat Power’s only constant member, keeps her scratchy, mournful voice low in the mix. Over it swirl doleful guitar chords, washes of foggy feedback, occasional flutes and percussion so soft that it sounds like tiptoeing footsteps.
Quiet, though, doesn’t equal twee — Marshall’s more like the madwoman whispering in the attic than like a typical Lilith Fair babydoll. Her music is all the more intense for being so self-effacing. On the first few listens, all the songs on Moon Pix sound the same, fading in to each other to form one long lugubrious lullaby. Listen closely, though, and they begin to open up, musically and emotionally. Like Beth Orton, Marshall compliments her brooding folk singing with hints of high-tech atmospherics — on “No Sense,” samples of a thunderstorm appear under layers of fuzz, low enough to become part of the song’s texture instead of just a cheesy special effect. The mood, too, is subtly variable, from the frustrated paranoia of “Back of Your Head” to the swampy angst of “Moonshiner” to the heartbreak of “Colors and the Kids.” It’s as if Chan Marshall has discovered a dozen different kinds of melancholy.