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