Like Blondie, Cat Power is a group, but one
principally the work of Chan Marshall. Armed only with
a battered-looking Steinway and a lone guitar, it is
Chan Marshall alone that brushes the hair
from her eyes, steadies her eggshell voice, and taps
into a cycle of song with few contemporary
parallels.
A bold claim, sure, but there are few other
performers who can pluck songs from the air as Chan
Marshall appears to do. Her face covered by
hippy-chick hair, fringe as fussy as Cousin It's,
Marshall seems to sniff out melodies out, cajoling
sound and melody from the Smithsonian Institute of her
mind. Segueing from cover to cover, blending original
into original, so much so that the joins are audible
only from appreciative but uncertain applause.
It would be inaccurate to call this a performance.
A performance might imply rehearsal, pre-decided
tempos, a meticulously planned set of new songs mixed
with familiar favourites knocked out at judicious
moments. Rather this is an unperformance. Chan
Marshall renders terms like 'polish' and
'professionalism' redundant, with only a buffer of
nervous charm offering any indication that we are not
just eavesdropping on a spectacularly-gifted amateur
before the main attraction arrives.
A new album is rumoured to be imminent, and many
songs are unfamiliar as Marshall switches from guitar
to piano and back at will. But in truth, it's difficult
to be sure. Devastatingly raw balladry such as Rule
The Islands, You and King Rides By begin and end
by rote, then reappear to punctuate referential dips
into devotional torchery such as Otis Redding's
I've Been Loving You Too Long and These Arms Of
Mine with James Brown's Try Me. One song
reflects another, Marshall's own compositions of a
piece with the emotionally devastated subtext with
these rhythm and blues of yore.
Like Bob Dylan, Marshall chooses to switch
around her arrangements according to mood. Names
loses some of its darker lines (which isn't saying
much) while her celebrated take on the Rolling Stones'
Satisfaction unexpectedly regains its strutting
chorus. Good Woman is given a thankfully full
reading, a melancholy farewell equal to any of the
broken love songs of the Bard of Duluth's pre-electric
period.
Incredibly, grim it is not. Hymns for the luckless
they may be, but the grapple with her art is nothing
less than absorbing. She sings with the innocence of
one dazzled by music, by her own abilities, and those
of others. She Introduces the White Stripes' I
Want To Be The Boy That Warms Your Mother's Heart
with a shy "I wish nobody knew this song".
There is no encore, but then I'm not absolutely
sure she knew we were there. Drifting at some point
between brittle and beautiful, brutal and tranquil,
Cat Power is really out on her own.
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