My Cat Is An Alien - Releases

Releases

My Cat Is An Alien are one of the most prolific groups in the international experimental music scene, with more than 100 records in their first 13 years of activity.

Tony Herrington, editor-in-chief & publisher of The Wire, characterizes the duo as

"Roberto and his brother Maurizio are the highly advanced lifeforms crewing the mysterious starship that goes by the name of My Cat Is An Alien (MCIAA), plotting a quixotic course through three millennia of cosmic music, from the celestial drones of the Pythagorean monochord onwards, to land up in the gravity-free realm of the No-mind"

The group has a large number of albums and side project material which is widely available on CDs, LPs and digital downloads released by well-known labels such as Atavistic (USA), Important (USA), Very Friendly/ Cargo (UK), P.S.F. (Japan), Elliptical Noise (CAN) among many others.

All MCIAA's album covers come from paintings, drawings and photographs by Roberto Opalio. Since artwork is a basic aspect of every record, MCIAA often release limited art edition vinyls, lathe cuts, cassettes, CD-Rs and DVD-Rs on their own Opax Records imprint, and other independent record labels.

In their early years, MCIAA made all recordings in the 'Space Room', the duo's first studio, located in an abandoned factory zone to the north of Torino city centre. As expression of their DIY aesthetics they self-released many limited CD-Rs during that period.

MCIAA's international debut album Landscapes Of An Electric City/ Hypnotic Spaces 3-sided LP on Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace! label in 2002 earned high marks from Dusted Magazine ("volcanic, both in sound quality and seeping magnitude…floating, impressionistic noise." ) and Bananafish Magazine, and a special mention on the book Post Rock (Giunti).

From 2004 MCIAA put out three consecutive vinyl releases on Eclipse Records—The Rest Is Silence (2004), When The Windmill's Whirl Dies (2005), and Greetings From The Great Void (2006)— later intended as a trilogy.

Another concept album collecting some of their most remarkable ambient, instrumental works, The Cosmological Eye Trilogy, was published as a 3 CD set on Last Visible Dog Records and awarded as "BEST 2005 ANTHOLOGY" by Foxy Digitalis, hereby introduced by editor-in-chief Brad Rose:

"As 2005 went on, I became a bigger and bigger My Cat Is An Alien fan. This Italian brother-duo are cosmic travellers, giving us earthlings a taste of stellar dust. This 3 CD set is absolutely essential. A pile of music to reach the summit of Olympus Mons, missing this would be an absolute crime."

After other key works such as Il Segno (Starlight Furniture Co., 2003), and Through The Reflex Of The Rain (Free Porcupine Society, 2005), in 2005 Important Records started releasing some albums that were met with praise by critics and contemporaries alike—Cosmic Light Of The Third Millennium (2005), Leave Me In The Black No-Thing (2007), For The Tears Of The Land_Prayers From The Outer Space (2009), Roberto Opalio's soloist debut Chants From Isolated Ghosts (2007), and an untitled limited split vinyl LP of solo works by the two brothers (2009)—

"This is highly original music.You can get lost inside its minimal, limpid beauty." claimed Ed Pinsent, editor & publisher of The Sound Projector Magazine.

Different Shades Of Blue, published by defunct label A Silent Place in 2006, has been awarded album of 2005 in the Top 30 chart "THE BEST OF AMBIENT WORKS 1978-2008" by the prestigious Studio Voice multi-media magazine and book publications in Japan.

In 2005 the Opalio brothers moved their recording studio from Torino to a remote and secret location in the Western Alps they call 'Alien Zone', where Roberto introduced his wordless vocalizations as a leading instrument. In this regard English writer Ken Hollings, author of MCIAA cover article in The Wire, states:

"Less a celestially pure tone than a cosmic moan, his brother's vocals find a distant echo in Blind Willie Johnson's Dark Was The Night Cold Was The Ground, recorded on Earth back in 1927 but currently making its way through deep space aboard Voyager as part of its collection of human music."

From the vastness of the Alpine territory, the brothers released new key works, including Black Shadows From Jupiter, Vol.I & II (Opax Records, 2005 / Elliptical Noise, 2009), Photoelectric Season (Elliptical Noise, 2010), and Fragments Suspended In Time (Opax Records, 2010).

Starting from 2009, most of their new albums are published by their devoted Canadian label Elliptical Noise Records, that in 2011 put out the triple CD set What Space Is Made For, whose track The Antigravitational Sense Of Nothingness is featured in Wire Tapper 25 CD Compilation accompanying The Wire magazine No. 326 (April 2011).

In 2008 My Cat Is An Alien also signed for Atavistic Worldwide.

On September 14, 2011 My Cat Is An Alien's first thirteen years of activity were celebrated with ALIENOLOGY: Selected Works 1998-2008, a ten disc box retrospective published by Elliptical Noise.