My Cat is an Alien

Concurrently released with a solo record by Roberto Opalio, Important also releases another emanation from the "Alien Zone” in Italy that Roberto and his brother Maurizio prowl as My Cat is an Alien. Where Roberto’s disc is a hushed affair, MCIAA unleash the full force of their cosmic noise. After a salutation that’s equal parts chanting and white shriek they retreat to their percussion instruments with all the glee of a spastic (i.e., rhythmically-challenged) kindergarten class recital. The disjunctive banging grows tedious but is thankfully replaced by a frequency-shifting chant/drone generated by voice and "space toys” that finally lifts off the roof and peers into the cosmos. The second half of the 30-minute track plunges headlong into the void with a shuddering abandon that most interstellar overdrives would never attempt. The second, slightly shorter, part builds around clusters of electric guitar notes that are strummed, looped and eventually obliterated by debris and space winds. The duo sticks to their "no overdub, no outtake” method of live in-studio improvisation, but with a methodology and tools that are recycled the experimentation begins to go to formula. There is purity in their primitive/futurist aesthetic that yields transcendent moments, moments that make it worth waiting out the tedium.