Cat Power
The Black Cat - Washington, DC (9/18/96)

Initially, I intended to review Cat Power's latest endeavor, the highly anticipated "Sun". Then, as it happens, I found myself listening to the immaculate recording of this concert that isn't quite a concert (if it is, it's only within the limits of possibility), and I let myself be swept away by its dense, dark, and obsessive sounds, presented as a grim and stark succession of laments for voice and guitar.

During the early period of her career, she had accustomed us to her minimal atmospheres, to her uncontrolled vocal degenerations, and to that existentialism so candid and ruthless in both music and lyrics that many found it indigestible. Yet, on September 18, 1996, confined within the walls of the Black Cat in Washington, she surpasses herself or, if you prefer, surpasses what might perhaps be defined as the extreme and maximum limit of forced musical suffering. Chan lets herself be carried away by her own voice and the increasingly resigned and aching chirp of her guitar, plunging headlong, without respite, into the performance of eight songs that strive to blend and compact into a single block, a solitary set made of indivisible sounds and emotional impressions.

The audience seems absent, perhaps petrified, perhaps enchanted, perhaps—and much more likely—hypnotized. Because Cat Power's voice has something hypnotic, as we know, something velvety and unreachable, and perhaps it is precisely in her voice, her greatest gift, that we find the courage to imagine her music as an emotionally bearable experience. Cat Power does her duty, as she almost always has, which is to free herself and the listener from shadows and ghosts now almost entrenched within us, and she seems determined to impose the acceptance of pain, suffering, and the complex web of emotions that we often do nothing but distance ourselves from. In fact, silence and paralysis reign supreme and unchallenged for the entire time between the artist and the audience, unable to express themselves during the set and applauding only at the end of the concert. A decidedly dark, mentally very "intense" and violent musical moment, then, which may appeal to few but should interest many. A dark jewel, a black pearl, a violent testament to a difficult career; a fundamental recording for those who love Cat Power, a dangerous challenge for those who have never heard her before.