Cities (The Cat Empire Album)
Cities is an album by The Cat Empire released on 1 April 2006. A strictly limited release, 10,000 individually numbered copies have been made in digipak format.
On 29 October, the album won an ARIA Music Award under the category: Awards for Fine Arts, Best World Music Album.
The album was recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Richmond, Melbourne, Australia.
As well as The Cat Empire and the Empire Horns (Ross Irwin, Kieran Conrau and Carlo Barbaro), this project features many guest artists, including:
- Alyssa Conrau (violin),
- Kirsty Conrau (cello),
- Novak Conrad (guitar),
- Julie O'Hara (vocals in 'Song for Elias', 'Motion', 'Song for the Day', 'Side to Side', 'Waltz' and 'Luck Song'),
- Nina Ferro (vocals, in 'Side to Side', 'Song for the Day' and 'Waltz'),
- Greg Sheehan (talking tamb in 'Waltz'),
- Bobby Singh (tablas in 'Cities' and 'Boogaloo'), and
- Kumar Shome (sitar in 'Cities') .
The album as a whole has a greater diversity in terms of style than seen on previous albums - Song for the Day, Luck Song, and Know Your Name have a prominent reggae feel, while Miss Soul, Side to Side, Boogaloo and Motion show classic R&B and Soul influences. There's even some polka thrown into the mix in the form of Waltz, and Anymore takes on a more traditional latin jazz style. There are also guitar parts in many tracks, an instrument which until now has been a rare occurrence in The Cat Empire's music.
Two songs (Siente and Song for the Day) are from early in the band's career, and haven't seen a mainstream studio release until now. (Siente was previously known as The Conspiracy, was sung by Harry Angus, and had different lyrics; however the backing chords, bridge, and horn/keyboard riffs are clearly recognizable.) Song for Elias has also been around long before Cities was released—only being played at live concerts (the most notable being the Bennett's Lane 17 May 2004 concert, from which the recording of On the Attack's Days Like These was taken. Side to Side can also be heard on a recording of Triple J's Live at the Wireless from 2005).
The album is no longer available from most retailers, but it can still be found at smaller stores such as Leading Edge music and also at the official Cat Empire website.
Read more about Cities (The Cat Empire Album): Track Listing, Charts
Famous quotes containing the words cities, cat and/or empire:
“Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the
prairies wide,
Over the dense-packed cities all and the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy, with joy to thee, O death,”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
““A young man in the dark am I
But a wild old man in the light
That can make a cat laugh, or
Can touch by mother wit
Things hid in their marrow bones
From time long passed away....””
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Ce corps qui s’appelait et qui s’appelle encore le saint empire romain n’était en aucune manière ni saint, ni romain, ni empire. This agglomeration which called itself and still calls itself the Holy Roman Empire was in no way holy, nor Roman, nor an empire.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)