CAT POWER

 When I first heard Ruin and Cherokee, the digital singles, I wondered if this was Cat Power's reinvention as a commercial artist. But with time, the songs revealed an unusual dichotomy. On the surface, there was a facade of pop thrills. You could hear a certain excitement, Marshall playing about with subtle dance constructions, moving forward into new, busier realms of communication. However, the themes were in unison with her sparse, past work. A mournful self-contemplation, dancing alone on a nightclub floor, swaying, the traveller, never quite satisfied, searching for the ideal state of being but still rooted in sadness and muffled remorse.

Sun, the album, is curious. Her intriguing manifestation of combining real and electronic instrumentation isn't solid, it's rather dislocated in places and primal as her most vital work often is. What threads the pattern, the emotional lucidity, is the way her voice has that roaming passion of the great soul singers, where everything is personal and universal. The heart cries out with a triumphant empathy in Nothing But Time while Iggy Pop gargles in the background. Yes, she has made edgier records before, descending into the core of love and pain and not all of Sun comes together yet I'm sort of thankful it doesn't. The knock and buzz of wild solitaire, modern designs for her, is met with an inevitable experience and ultimate wish for sublime resolution.