The Cat Empire
What makes a good party a great one is waaaaay more than a smokin' band. It's also that impossible thing that happened, the funny feeling you got, the madness in the kitchen, the door down the hall you shouldn't have opened, the poignant conversation, the flash of revelation, the kiss that made you feel so far away, and that girl you think you nearly met - then never forgot.
Welcome to The Cat Empire's third album, So Many Nights. Like always, the band is smokin' beyond belief. But this year, well, let's just say the party has crossed the line between mystery and light. And back. A few times.
And so the strange, colourful trip unfurls from the airborne whimsy of Panama to the mystifying, swirling thrill of The Darkness. It's all melancholy ache in Lonely Moon, funky as hell in So Long and Strong Coffee, then freaky like a spaghetti western acid trip in Voodoo Cowboy.
Fireworks are standard accessories with this band - factor in Ollie McGill (keys), ‘Jumps' Khadiwala (decks), Ryan Monro (bass) and Will Hull-Brown (drums) - but this year's new, smouldering shades of subtlety are likely to be a revelation to anyone who has caught one of the Empire's 600 roof-raising shows between Melbourne and Montreal these past six years.
The Empire's roots are in the late night jazz clubs of Melbourne, but they've since sprouted wings over the US, Canada, Europe and Asia, where they've negotiated a series of record deals without surrendering a note of their freedom. Like some kind of funky circus troupe, they roll into town, sell twice as many tickets as the previous visit, and a truckload of CDs on the way out.
Their self-titled debut album scored double platinum sales and seven ARIA Nominations in '03. They recorded Two Shoes in the legendary Studio 101 in Havana, Cuba, in '05. It debuted at #1 and also sold double platinum.
Cities was the Cat Empire's idea of a little side project: an 80-minute soundtrack commissioned to open the 2006 Commonwealth Games, then televised to one billion people worldwide. The album - The Cat Empire Project - won the World Music ARIA that year.
From Letterman to Leno, the Glastonbury Festival to New York's Central Park, Japan to Barcelona, WOMADelaide to the Montreal Jazz Festival and rave reviews at all stops, it often seemed The Cat Empire were sole nominees for Superlative Of The Year (Indefinable Genre Division) 2006/ 07.
So Many Nights was produced at Sing Sing studios in Melbourne in April '07 by the legendary John Porter (Roxy Music, the Smiths, BB King, Taj Mahal, Los Lonely Boys, Ryan Adams), and mixed by John in Malibu, as the Empire continued their relentless world conquest - night by night, to an average of 2,500 people per gig.
And that determination to bring the party to the good citizens of this world finds the Cat Empire to Southbound. Are you ready?