The album cover that graces 

the front of The Cat Breathes the 
Fresh Water is a barely discernible 
cacophony of red. “The Cat,” it 
declares in messy scrawl in the 
upper left-hand corner, before 
getting cut off by what can only be 
described as a vague approximation 
of a human face. 
On 
either 
side, 

two stars hang at a 
lopsided angle and a 
miniature cat hides 
in the empty circle 
of the left eye. Its 
whiskers are askew; 
its solemn eyes are 
pinpricks.

The album cover is akin to 

almost every single bored doodle 
you would see if you picked up any 
high schooler’s Algebra notebook 
and flipped through the pages. It 
is totally, completely and utterly 
offhand, yet its roughness beguiles 
the casual observer rather than 
repels. After all — especially in 
music — so rarely are you allowed 
to see art displayed like this: 
Stripped down to its essence, the 
seemingly meaningless byproduct 
of an errant hand and a wandering 
mind. The Cat’s convoluted lines 
call to you. Intrigued, you can only 
wonder who the cat in question is, 
how they can even breathe water 
in the first place and hit play on the 
first song. It is titled “The Cat Is 
Back,” and it announces its return 
with a buoyant: 

“Yo! Homeslice G.”
The Cat Breathes the Fresh Water 

is the third album to come out of 
The Cat, a musical duo consisting 
of former Daily Arts writer and 
Ford senior Will Stewart and 
Dylan Trupiano, a senior at George 
Washington University. The album 

was released on Sept. 14, yet it 
seems that the origin of the album 
itself, its essence, was conceived 
during a sleepover between the 
two boys many years prior. A night 
that started with rudimentary 
piano banging and what can only 
be imagined as a pretty impressive 
falsetto 
courtesy 
of 
Stewart 

himself, and ended with the hazy 
emergence of what would later 
become The Cat.

The Cat Breathes 

the 
Fresh 
Water 

grows 
from 
this 

initial 
youthful 

exuberance. 
It’s 

apparent 
from 

those 
very 
first 

few lines of “The 
Cat 
Is 
Back.” 

“Yo! 
Homeslice 

G,” a disembodied voice calls, 
and is immediately answered by 
makeshift beatboxing, which then 
falls into a beat that punctuates the 
vocals with an intensity that belies 
the actual words themselves. “The 
cat is back, and he’s ready to rap” is 
repeated, climbing pitch each time 
until it reaches a fervor that makes 
your eyes water.

Musical experimentation for 

musical experimentation’s sake, 
The Cat finds a way to layer and 
stitch together a variety of sounds, 
textures and genres in the span 
of 35 minutes. The rolling beat 
that drives “Give This Cat A Slap” 
forward 
is 
interspersed 
with 

ad-libs as abrupt and absurd as 
Playboi Carti’s. The rage-infused 
electronic/rap hybrid of “Summer 
Sweat Mix” is a reminder (albeit 
a more subtle reminder) of Death 
Grips’s 
particular 
brand 
of 

industrial hip-hop fusion. “Red 
Flannel”’s raspy guitar hum is 
every Alex G song on steroids.

The album isn’t cohesive; it 

isn’t meant to be, yet, even so, the 
soft children’s choir sequence 

sampled at the end of the “The 
Cat Is Back” bleeds into the first 
few seconds of “Give This Cat A 
Slap,” and the acoustic trepidation 
of “Red Flannel” is picked back up 
again during “King of Downriver” 
and “Holding Me Back.” It holds 
together all the same. Maybe it’s 
because of the history behind The 
Cat, years of friendship between 
band partners acting like a glue 
of sorts, or maybe it’s because 
of the album’s own constant 
unpredictability. You genuinely 
don’t know what to expect from 
song to song on The Cat Breathes 
the Fresh Water, so you come to 
expect it all.

Above everything else, The 

Cat has created something that 
is genuinely fun to listen to. The 
album’s individual components 
— the mournful, autotuned tirade 
against a past lover in “That’s Not 
My Phone Number” (“How did 
you get this phone number, baby 
/ That’s not my phone number,” 
the narrator croons, and the 
audience cries with him), the 
harmonious dance between deep 
electric guitar riffs and what 
could either be Bauhaus-esque 
electronica or a really out of tune 
piccolo towards the end of “Don’t 
Burn My Kids Shorts” — are 
each one more creative than the 
last. You can’t help but smile at 
the dramatically pitched vocals, 
at the unceremonious changes 
in rhythm, at every weird and 
wonderful aspect.

The Cat stretches their bona fide 

sincerity and musical expertise 
into grotesque shapes on The Cat 
Breathes the Fresh Water. What 
we know as music is warped into 
absurdity; the resulting carnival 
funhouse mirror maze reflects 
back a reality that is both familiar 
and not, colorful and vibrant in 
a way that compels you to just sit 
down and just soak it all in. 

The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, September 26, 2018 — 5A

This morning saw the release 

of the third and final trailer for 
the upcoming J.K. Rowling film 
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes 
of Grindelwald,” and with it the 
reminder that, oh right, there’s 
a “Harry Potter” prequel series 
going on right now.

Beginning 
in 
2016 
with 

“Fantastic Beasts and Where to 
Find Them,” J.K. Rowling, along 
with director David Yates, began 
telling what they claim will be a 
five-part story exploring the life 
of Newt Scamander and a young 
Albus 
Dumbledore, 
the 
fight 

against archvillain Grindelwald 
and 
a 
great 
wizarding 
war 

that appears to bear a striking 
resemblance to another wizarding 
war we witnessed not that long ago.

Before this series not-so-subtly 

revealed itself as a full-blown Harry 
Potter prequel, it was ostensibly 
supposed to follow the adventures 
of Newt as he traveled around 
the world collecting creatures to 
study for the eponymous book for 
which the first film was named. 
That seems to have largely fallen 
by the wayside in favor of the story 
surrounding 
Dumbledore 
and 

Grindelwald, arguably one of the 
larger portions of backstory given 
to us in the original Potter text. 
While possibly an interesting story 
in its own right, how can it ever 
compare against the backdrop of 
the boy wizard saga that taught a 
generation to love reading?

For many creators, prequels 

appear like a safe way to move 
forward with more of a beloved 
story without actually having to do 
so. It’s a way to give you more Star 
Wars without having to write past 
the natural ending, and a way to 
give the world more Harry Potter 
without ruining Harry’s story. 
Prequels, at first glance, seem like 
a good bet but they inevitably hurt 
a franchise more than they help it. 

Harry Potter, in particular, feels 
like a franchise that should be 
allowed to die while it’s still alive. 
For a time, J.K. Rowling herself 
seemed content to let Harry lie 
low and relax, but in recent years, 
she has become far more willing to 
go back to the proverbial well and 
(at the risk of mixing metaphors) 
milk the cow for all its worth. 
Like Tolkien and Lucas before her, 

Rowling simply can’t resist the pull 
that her creations have over herself 
and over the wallets of the world. 
First came “Harry Potter and the 
Cursed Child,” a play that received 
rave reviews for the production 
but came under intense scrutiny 
by fans for its confusing narrative, 
shock value twists and seeming 
disregard 
for 
the 
previously 

established canon.

This 
newest 
trailer 
for 

“Grindelwald” leans even more 
heavily into previously established 
Potter 
lore, 
name-dropping 

Voldemort’s snake Nagini, seen 
here as a young woman one 
presumes will eventually become 
trapped in the form of a snake in a 
twist straight out of an Animorphs 
book. This development is another 
classic example of the plight 
that prequel stories often have 
to contend with. In the original 
series, Nagini was merely a creepy 
pet of a creepy villain. Now, she’s 
a seemingly central character, 

hinting that Voldemort himself 
will eventually appear. How are 
we supposed to be afraid of Johnny 
Depp’s Grindelwald when we 
know that the real ultimate evil, 
the one who will one day murder 
Grindelwald himself, is just waiting 
slightly offstage?

Such is the problem with 

prequels. For the audience to 
maintain interest the stakes have 
to be upped, but if the stakes are 
upped too high, it can undercut 
the narrative of the original 
story that the prequel is building 
towards. Peter Jackson’s “The 
Hobbit” trilogy fell straight into 
this trap. Instead of trying to make 
something different from “Lord of 
the Rings,” Jackson tried to make 
“Lord of the Rings” again. At times 
in this new “Fantastic Beasts” 
trailer, one can’t help but wonder if 
Rowling is heading down the same 
dark path. Surely, this is all leading 
to a scene two or three films from 
now where Dumbledore or Newt 
face off against Grindelwald in a 
wand-waving feat of fantasy filled 
with colors and explosions and just 
enough orchestration to stir the 
heartstrings of geeks everywhere. 
Will that be enough to satisfy the 
demands of the fanbase that grew 
up with Harry but who might now 
have kids of their own? Will it be 
enough to satisfy the bottom line 
needs of Warner Bros.? It seems 
unlikely. Just a few years ago, 
most people thought Harry’s story 
was over. Who doesn’t now think 
it will be only a matter of time 
before we see Daniel Radcliffe, 
Emma Watson, Rupert Grint and 
all the rest back on the big screen? 
With a world as expansive as 
Harry’s, in today’s day and age of 
IP recognition against all else, it’s 
a wonder the original films were 
allowed to end at all. The Boy Who 
Lived indeed. Perhaps one day soon 
we’ll be wishing that he hadn’t.

The Peril of Prequels

DAILY ENTERTAINMENT COLUMN

IAN HARRIS

It’s 
an 
undeniable 
epic: 

Stanley Kubrick’s classic film 
“2001: 
A 
Space 
Odyssey,” 

which turned 50 years old this 
past Apr., is known to be one 
of the most wildly influential 
films of all time. Pioneering 
visual effects, bold aesthetic 
decisions — including scene 
length, dialogue, music (or 
lack thereof) — and abstract 
plot 
classify 
the 
film 
as 

contemporary art. By itself, 
it can be an intense movie-
watching experience, given its 

length (just shy of three hours) 
and unconventional pace. But 
add a live orchestra, and you’ve 
got a new movie-watching 
experience entirely.

To kick off their 140th 

season, the University Musical 
Society presented “2001: A 
Space Odyssey” in conjunction 
with the Detroit Symphony 
Orchestra. 
Though 
Hill 

Auditorium seats over 3,500 
people, community members 
began lining up for the free 
event long before 8:00 p.m., 
and by the time it began, nearly 
every seat in the house was full.

The 
music 
featured 

in — and now cognitively 
inseparable from — “2001: A 

Space Odyssey” is almost as 
famous as the movie itself; the 
opening piece, a theme from 
the Richard Strauss tone poem 
“Also 
sprach 
Zarathustra,” 

begins with those iconic three 
notes — the root, the perfect 
fifth and the octave — (you 
know 
the 
three), 
followed 

by those next two notes, the 
dramatic half step between 
the minor and major third. 
It’s one of the most famous 
musical phrases of all time. 
I’ve heard it a million times 
before, and this was not my 
first time seeing the film. Yet 
there was something different 
about hearing the notes from a 
full, live orchestra, performing 

The Cat 

Beathes the 
Fresh Water

The Cat

WARNER BROS.

‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ 
unites live music & film

MGM

right under a huge projection of 
the movie. 

The 
grandiosity 
of 
Hill 

added a sense of greatness 
to the event — even from the 
balcony, I could feel the energy 
of the hall, the audience and 
the cohesion of art in front 
of me. I’d never seen a movie 
and a live orchestra playing 
simultaneously, and as I sat 
watching it among the 3,500 
other people around me while 
the DSO played, I began to 
notice 
a 
strong 
similarity 

between the experience I was 
having and that of going to the 
opera. I don’t know exactly 
what it was that triggered the 
association, but watching the 
overarching story happening 
on 
the 
screen, 
with 
the 

orchestra and conductor on 
stage, reminded me of what it 
feels like to sit in the audience 
of a show like “La Bohème” 
or “Cosi Fan Tutti.” It’s an 
experience where you can see 
the instruments in front of 
you producing the sound that 
completes what you are visually 
intaking; it is an experience 
that is well-rounded — one that 
you can almost feel throughout 
your entire body, with all of 
your senses engaged in a way 
that doesn’t happen every day. 

This also got me thinking: 

While the music used in “2001: 
A Space Odyssey” was not 
written specifically for the 
movie, most films have scores 
that are commissioned for the 
sole purpose of complementing 
the movie at hand. Today, a 
few composers who are known 
for film scoring are household 
names: John Williams, Hans 

Zimmer 
and 
Alexandre 

Desplat, to name a few. The 
mental association of melodies 
with their respective movies 
— such as the “Indiana Jones” 
theme, the “Star Wars” theme, 
the “Pirates of the Caribbean” 
theme — is unbreakable. They 
are as essential to the movie as 
the plot itself. So why is movie 
music generally not taken as 
seriously as, say, the music 
written for operas by Mozart, 
Puccini and Verdi? 

In the Academy Award-

winning 1984 film “Amadeus,” 
Mozart is shown composing 
and 
conducting 
operas 
he 

has written — operas that are 
now considered some of the 
greatest and most famous of all 
time, such as “The Marriage 
of Figaro,” “The Magic Flute” 
and “Don Giovanni.” When 
his performances finish and 
the operas come to a close, 
we see the audience erupt in 
to applause and praise. He 
is portrayed as a rock star 
of his time. The stories that 
these operas reflect, however, 
already 
existed 
in 
some 

capacity 
before 
they 
were 

made into an opera by Mozart. 
“The Marriage of Figaro” was 
first a play, “The Magic Flute” 
is based on Viennese literature 
and “Don Giovanni” tells the 
much-performed story of Don 
Juan. But it is when Mozart 
tells these stories through 
music 
that 
they 
become 

something 
else 
entirely, 

evoking emotion in audiences 
that is only possible through 
music. 

There 
are 
fundamental 

differences between an opera, 

where the entire production is 
done through music, and a film, 
where the music is usually not 
the absolute focus, but the two 
may not be as contrasting as we 
might think. Rightly so, operas 
and films are not overtly 
considered to be competing art 
forms, as they embody quite 
different characteristics and 
require distinct preparation, 
pre-production 
work 
and 

post-production 
work. 
But 

as I sat watching “2001: A 
Space 
Odyssey” 
with 
the 

orchestra playing right there, 
I realized that, although the 
evolution 
of 
entertainment 

is often examined through a 
technological lens — beginning 
with early forms of radio 
and 
moving 
through 
the 

subsequent decades from there 
— it is worth considering the 
commonalities 
between 
the 

viewing experience of an opera 
and that of a movie.

Maybe 
having 
a 
live 

orchestra with a film screening 
will become more common and 
accessible; maybe audiences 
will like having a special, 
extravagant 
movie-going 

experience 
that 
parallels 

that of going to the opera, 
realizing 
it 
combines 
the 

excitement of seeing a movie 
with the exhilarating nature 
of 
seeing 
live 
performers. 

Maybe something like this will 
be the new iPic. Who knows. 
But either way, seeing “2001: 
A Space Odyssey” in this way 
completely 
transformed 
my 

experience watching the film, 
listening to the music live and 
understanding the marriage 
between the two.

ALLIE TAYLOR
Daily Arts Writer

The Cat is back & brings 
a warped reality with it

ALBUM REVIEW

SHIMA SADAGHIYANI

Daily Music Editor

COURTESY OF THE ARTIST

COMMUNITY CULTURE REVIEW

