Music for Cats

The title of cEvin Key's Music for Cats shouldn't be taken literally; most felines would be a bit terrified of the electronic trickery Key and friends employ here. The friends make up what the liner notes call the SubConscious Orchestra, and they are the late D.R. Goettel, Genesis P-Orridge, Ashok Sarkar, John West, Philth, and Mark Spybey. The music these fellows create is a creepy, energetic, and gurgling cacophony of analog and digital confusion. Tracks like "Meteorite," which sparkles and blips as sound effects crisscross between the right and left stereo channels, would cause any cat to twitch and turns its ears 270 degrees to see what the ruckus is about. It's certainly not about the Goth suspense and political statements of Skinny Puppy, Key, and Goettel's mother band. The songs actually sounds more like Autechre tracks than anything else. "Bird" is delicately pretty as it creates a bubbling mood of tension and paranoia. It wouldn't be out of place on a Boards of Canada album if it wasn't underscored by a repetitive, scary keyboard effect. P-Orridge's vocals on "Inside Jam World," "Have You Ever Felt Like This?," and "Beauty Is the Enemy" are the usual spoken-word strangeness for which he's become known. In these instances, Music for Cats operates more as a collection of mood pieces than anything approaching Skinny Puppy or Download territory. Many songs end up sounding more like fragments than finished pieces. Key leans toward relatively obvious samples, sound effects, and repetition a bit too frequently on the lesser tracks, which also unfortunately clock in longer than necessary. "Herbalist Rule" and "Have You Ever Felt Like This?" are two of the more successful tracks, with the former suggesting twisted drum'n'bass and the latter containing some truly terrifying moments via P-Orridge. Music for Cats is not at the visionary level of Skinny Puppy, and it's not for skinny or fat cats, but it is effortlessly dark, cryptic, and discomforting, and often quite pretty. Ultimately, it suggests that, with better arrangements, cEvin Key is capable of producing slightly more compelling music.