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My Cat Is An Alien

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Roberto Opalio, “Once you’ll touch the sky you will never return to dust” (Elliptical Noise, 2018)

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Seemingly birthed from the same fascination with vinyl surface noise as The Sky With Broken Arms, Roberto Opalio’s solo companion piece is perhaps even more unique and consciousness-expanding than its sister. It is also unexpectedly varied and weirdly beautiful at times, blurring together the usual deep-space lysergia with viscerally unnerving dissonances and hypnotically looping crackles and pops. While those added touches certainly delight me, this album is unmistakably and absolutely Opalio-esque to its core, standing as one of the most sharply realized and distilled releases in the MCIAA oeuvre. If The Sky With Broken Arms is a brief glimpse into a hypnotically otherworldly scene, Once You’ll Touch The Sky is a phantasmal travelogue of the troubled dreams that follow in its wake.

In the eternally shifting cosmic fantasia of My Cat is an Alien, few things can ever be said to be normal or expected, but “Preludio” finds Roberto opening the album in relatively familiar territory, albeit only briefly. It is a curious sequencing decision, as the bleary haze of spectral vocal cooing and gently blooping and whooshing alientronics does nothing to prepare me for the sustained plunge into the swirling and hallucinatory altered reality that follows. Knowing the proud Opalio tradition of “spontaneous composition,” I am rather amazed at the scope, depth, and nuance of the title piece, as Roberto seamlessly transforms its shape again and again like an alien mirage.

In hindsight, I suspect “Preludio” exists solely because “Once You’ll Touch The Sky” plunges immediately into the lysergic depths rather than wading slowly in through the usual slow accumulation of loops. The opening theme roughly resembles organ drone, though Roberto seems to be playing a modified mini-keyboard through some pitch-shifting and wah-wah effects to weave an unsettling web of undulating and eerily harmonizing glissandi. That opening nicely illustrates an aspect of the Opalios’ work that I always enjoy: their approach to psychedelia is an uncompromisingly complete one, as their best work is an absolutely engulfing experience that provides no solid ground or recognizable reference points to get my bearings. It is not an entertainment—it is an ocean that I am dropped in and I am forced to give myself over to it and go where its tide takes me. In fact, there is no better metaphor for this album than submersion, as its slow transformations feel like being immersed in a viscous liquid that is continually morphing into new colors, textures, and sundry other sensory and extra-sensory phenomena.

Despite the album’s fundamental state of constant flux and celebration of queasily undulating textures and harmonies, its various threads occasionally converge into an oasis of dreamlike beauty. I would not necessarily describe the spell of this album as “nightmarish,” as there is no real sense of menace, yet the dream state it evokes is definitely an unsettling and unnervingly ambiguous one. As such, it can be quite striking and wonderful when the seemingly endless and impenetrable phantasmagoric mists of Roberto’s vision occasionally give way to a glimpse of heaven (such as the languorous and tenderly warbling reverie that starts to cohere around the 15-minute mark). Those glimpses are always elusive and short-lived, of course, but the fact that it can appear at any time is what makes this album such a complex and entrancing experience.

As lovely as the aforementioned interlude is, however, it becomes even more compelling once Roberto’s crackling and popping vinyl noise slowly creeps into the picture. Interestingly, that haplessly ravaged vinyl collection does not get a credit on this particular releases, so I believe Roberto is merely approximating its sound with his handmade shortwave receiver. In any case, he takes a different approach with crackle and sizzle here than he did on The Sky With Broken Arms, as it takes shape as kind of a slow, locked-groove-style pulse.There is considerably more happening than that though, as there are some fascinating microcosmic dynamics unfolding as well: the pops and scratches seems to be slightly out of phase and tumbling over one another. It is a truly wonderful bit of sorcery, completely stealing attention from the more overt motifs unfolding around it. It feels a lot like the sky opened up to slowly wash away the rest of the album with an unnaturally reverberating and purifying drizzle. That is a fine way to end an album.

As with all recent My Cat is an Alien releases, it feels hopelessly reductionist to view Once You’ll Touch The Sky as an album and even the fact that it is art feels somewhat beside the point. Instead, it is something more akin to a religious experience—not in a hyperbolic sense, but it is definitely a ritualistic event that can transform the energy in a room and strip away the veil of consciousness for a while. That said, sometimes the stars metaphorically line up perfectly to create an especially transcendent communion with the Opalios’ extra-dimensional plane of consciousness and this is one of those times.

Once You’ll Touch the Sky is one of the true gems in the MCIAA canon, as it is every bit as immersive and reality-dissolving as I would expect, but goes a bit deeper and further than usual in every sense. This is more than just a gateway into an alien dreamscape, as it has a clear arc that leads far beyond the starting point. Also, it feels like an unusually soulful and tender journey. I do not think I have ever described an album by the Opalios as soulful before, as subtle shades of emotion tend to get hopelessly eclipsed by the all-engulfing scope of their lysergic vision, but this album is understated and purposeful enough to let Roberto’s humanity seep into its ecstatic alien reverie.

Listen here.

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My Cat is an Alien, “The Sky With Broken Arms” (Elliptical Noise, 2018)

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This latest opus from the Opalio brothers continues their restlessly experimental hot streak, taking inspiration from a characteristically bizarre event: two years ago, Roberto discovered that a bunch of his records were corroded by an “inexplicable oxidation process.” After some time, he decided to listen to one of them anyway and found himself fascinated by the way the listening experience was transformed by the surface noise. Naturally, the instantaneous composition that resulted from that revelation is considerably more bizarre and idiosyncratic than a mere celebration of crackle and hiss, but the added layer of noise beautifully adds an evocative textural layer to The Sky With Broken Arms‘ sublime and eerily otherworldly reverie.

Every now and then, I come across an album that has uncannily perfect cover art that not only conveys exactly the tone of the album, but seems to exist as an absolutely crucial part of the whole. The Sky With Broken Arms is one such album, as Roberto Opalio’s blurred and mysterious photograph of a tree and a streetlight is a window into the similarly blurred and mysterious world that this blearily languorous longform piece inhabits. I should note that “longform” in this case means a mere 36 minutes, so this is actually a comparatively concise and distilled dose of the Opalio’s lysergic sorcery, given their recent run of double-, triple-, and sextuple-album epics. Aside from that brevity and the omnipresent crackle and hiss of Roberto’s ravaged vinyl, however, this release shares a lot of stylistic common ground with some of the Opalio’s more sustained plunges into deep-drone psychedelia. All of the expected elements (the alientronics; the eerily floating, wordless vocals; the surreal loops) are in place as always, yet The Sky With Broken Arms has its own very distinct character, as it paints an extremely vivid picture of a very specific scene (for me, at least).

If this album were a movie, it would be a grainy home video of a sleepy rural town at night: the streets are empty, the one stoplight gently sways in the wind, and the church bell in the center of town hollowly resonates, announcing the time. Something is not quite right, however, as the bell continues to calmly ring again and again long after it has passed any possible earthy hour: time seems to have either frozen, slowed, or gotten stuck in an endlessly looping moment. Also, the bell is not the only sound, as the very air itself seems to have come alive with a crackle that resembles the sparking of a downed power line. And it sounds like a nearby radio has suddenly come to life as well and is now picking up mysterious, swooping transmissions from unknown sources. In fact, it seems like the entire town has been completely enveloped in some kind of unexplained electromagnetic disturbance and I seem to be the only one awake to witness it.

Characteristically, things only get stranger from that point, as Broken Arms is essentially just one long, slow descent into escalating weirdness. First, Maurizio’s queasily rippling guitars make it feel like reality is dissolving into a dizzying fever dream. Then, Roberto’s unnervingly spectral vocals start to creep over the piece like a dense, lysergic fog. Or like a sickly green light emanating from a UFO hovering right above the town. Needless to say, there is nothing else on earth quite like this album (or like My Cat is an Alien). Ostensibly, this is music, but that feels like a hopelessly reductive term for the transcendent, reality-disrupting spell that the Opalios cast. This album is roughly as disorienting as unexpectedly waking up in another dimension. Or at the bottom of the sea.

I suppose there are other My Cat is an Alien albums that I like more than this one, but that kind of earthbound thinking truly misses the point of the Opalios’ artistry. A new MCIAA album is never just a fresh batch of songs—it is both a legitimate event and an invitation to share the Opalios’ hermetic, otherworldly headspace for a brief time. Notably, that headspace is never the same twice, as the Opalios’ music is an evolving ritual. It is quite remarkable how the brothers are able endlessly combine and rearrange their unconventional and minimal sound palette into new experiences with their own distinct personalities. Some albums are like a deep trance, some are like an extradimensional nightmare, some are like a plunge into the subconscious, and some make me feel like I am losing my goddamn grip on sanity. This one is a bit different, as it feels like living inside an especially haunting and surreal episode of The Twilight Zone. On one level, it is a bit less “alien” than some of the duo’s more expansive releases, but the few recognizable touches from our physical world arguably make it one of the Opalios’ more unnerving and striking releases to date, as the border separating reality from the Opalios’ darkly lysergic vision now feels ominously porous.

Listen here.

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My Cat is an Alien, “The Dance of Oneirism” (Backwards/Elliptical Noise, 2015)

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The Opalio Brothers have been on quite a hot streak in recent years, as both Psycho-System (2013) and Abstract Expressionism for the Ears (2014) were massive, tour de force plunges into hermetic, all-consuming, and completely otherworldly psychedelia. The Dance of Oneirism masterfully continues the distillation of MCIAA’s ever-evolving and singular vision, weaving its eerie, lysergic, and wonderfully disorienting spell in just under a hour (remarkably concise, given the duo’s history). As expected, it is yet another near-masterpiece of insular and visionary outsider genius and emphatically reaffirms my belief that absolutely nobody goes deeper or is more intent on scrambling minds than Roberto and Maurizio Opalio.

“Oneirism” is defined by the Merriam-Webster medical dictionary as “a dreamlike mental state experienced while awake,” which also seems like quite an apt description My Cat is an Alien’s career as a whole. Oneirism is basically their natural state, but now I guess there is metaphorical dancing involved as well. In any case, the oneirism on this particular album is induced primarily by Roberto Opalio’s self-made “alientronics,” which weave a queasily twinkling and buzzing web of cold electronic tones throughout the album. While there are ostensibly five different numbered pieces, The Dance of Oneirism is best understood and experienced as a whole, consisting of multiple spontaneously composed variations on a theme recorded over two days in the brothers’ Western Alps studio. 

Explaining the central theme is a bit tricky though, as it is a mixture of mood and complex textures rather than anything resembling a conventional structure or recurring melody. Instead, the vein that runs throughout The Dance of Oneirism is merely the slow pulse of Roberto’s psycho-active electronics coupled with his spectral and sighing wordless vocals. While that certainly creates an appealingly woozy and disquieting atmosphere, the Opalios are not so much a musical entity so much as a pair of psychonauts who use music as the tool for their ritualistic altered state of unreality.

The differences between the various pieces occur primarily in the periphery and in the alternately stuttering or throbbing undercurrent. The most divergent of the lot is the uncharacteristically brief “The Dance of Oneirism #4,” which boasts a stark and lurching drum machine rhythm and pushes the alientronics into the background to make room for a host of spacey whooshes and crackling static (presumably deep space transmissions). 

In general, however, Roberto’s buzzing and hissing electronic reverie is enhanced by Maurizio’s battery of unusual string instruments, which provide an effectively sharp and earthbound foil to the dream-like nimbus of drifting bleeps, buzzes, and hums. Naturally, Maurizio’s homemade pocket harp and “self-made double-bodied string instrument” do not do anything as mundane as play chords or melodies—they too are employed in an entirely textural way, sounding like everything from broken, rusty, and distant church bells (or chimes) to a lazily plucked and detuned tambura. Significantly, these five pieces do not quite evolve so much as sustain a vibrantly hallucinatory stasis: any sort of escalating density or compositional arc is merely a byproduct of their efforts to maintain a rich and multilayered alien headspace.

Notably, The Dance of Oneirism is largely impervious to any sort of normal critique, as what the Opalios are trying to do is so far outside the norm (even by experimental music standards) that common barometers of quality are mostly irrelevant. No one else is doing anything even remotely like this and My Cat is an Alien’s only discernible influence at this point in their career seems to be themselves. That said, all of the normal caveats for an MCIAA album apply just as much as ever: Oneirism offers absolutely nothing at all for the casual listener to grab onto, such as songcraft, hooks, power, or conventional beauty. Instead, the Opalios expect prospective listeners to trust them enough to give both themselves and their complete attention over to a sustained dive into some very deep, dark, and strange waters. 

More than almost any other artist, MCIAA demand that the listener meet them halfway in order to fully reap the rewards of their work. As far as I am concerned, however, that is a perfectly acceptable (and even welcome) pact. It seems like a very small price to pay for the auditory equivalent of astral travel far outside my current place in the space-time continuum. As long as My Cat is an Alien keep sending compelling and singular dispatches from their own personal rabbit hole into the subconscious, I will be eagerly waiting to experience them.

Listen here.

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My Cat Is An Alien & Cédric Stevens, “Abstract Expressionism for the Ears” (Opax/Elliptical Noise, 2014)

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No one will ever accuse the Opalio brothers of lacking ambition. Their previous release, 2013’s Psycho-System, was a hallucinatory drone epic that spanned six discs and clocked in at over three hours. Now they are back with a triple-album in a very different vein. Though similar in its staggering scope, Abstract Expressionism for the Ears is often considerably more accessible and organic-sounding than its more insular and deeply warped predecessor. Part of that credit certainly goes to Stevens, who proves himself to be a very sympathetic collaborator, but the primary difference is the focus on unconventionally employed (and melodic) piano strings, which often makes Abstract Expressionism resemble classic Laraaji plunged into an otherworldly rabbit hole. Most other times, of course, there is no earthbound point of reference to be found at all.

The unpredictable tug-of-war between genius, excess, and impenetrability is one of MCIAA’s most endearing traits: they might make some of the most brilliantly strange and beautiful music around, yet they always do it on their own terms, and those terms can be somewhat prickly. Abstract Expressionism is a perfect example of that phenomenon, as it could have easily been a near-perfect single album made up of just “Tasting the New Ether” and “When the Sun Goes Down There’s Nothing Left to Tune.” 

Instead, the Opalios opted to expand their triumph into a complex and challenging tour de force three times as long. Whether that was a good idea or not is difficult to say. On the one hand, it spreads the trio’s best moments a bit thinner than would be ideal, but it compensates by turning Abstract Expressionism into an event rather than a mere album and lures listeners into some darker, stranger waters that that they might not have normally entered.

In any case, the opening “Tasting the New Ether” easily stands as one of the finest moments in the Opalios’ entire discography. Built upon a gently rippling motif presumably played on Roberto’s vertical piano, it weaves a dreamy, hallucinatory spell that is gradually threatened by stumbling, overlapping notes and an arsenal of chirps, snarls, and swells from Maurizio and Cédric. 

I could have easily listened to “Ether” endlessly ebb and flow around its simmering miasma of feedback for another hour and it would have been great. Instead, however, the piece gradually collapses into a black hole and it is gloriously heavy and wonderful. “When the Sun Goes Down There’s Nothing Left to Tune” performs a similarly impressive balancing act between stuttering piano loops, rattling strings, and an increasingly roiling swell of abstract noise and electronics. It succeeds just as beautifully.

The remaining two epic pieces, however, differ considerably. My pick of the two is “Intersection of Shadows,” which sounds like a howling, gnarled transmission from deep space that eventually dissolves into a bizarre soup of flanging noise and something that resembles the garbled, digitized sounds of an alien rainforest. The 25-minute “Shifting at Zero Gravity,” on the other hand, is a floating oasis of languorous calm, gently rattling strings, and echoing electronic chirps. Gradually, however, it begins to evoke the cold enormity of space as Roberto’s wordless vocals create an eerie, subtly dissonant undercurrent and the intruding rumbles, hisses, and distant howls become increasingly hard to ignore.

The album winds down with two comparatively shorter pieces, the 15-minute “The Ineffable Call of Tomorrow” and the 4-minute “Just a Tone of White Over Blue.” “The Ineffable Call” retains the mood of drifting interstellar isolation mingled with menace, but revisits the theme in a more grindingly metallic fashion that elsewhere. “Tone” closes the album with a brief coda-like return to the zither-esque piano strings from earlier, but embeds them in a hallucinatory mélange of reversed noises and blearily dissonant wordless vocals. While neither piece is a reasonable contender for an album highlight, both are strong enough to avoid seeming like filler and provide a welcome gradual transition back to normal conscious after such a prolonged and deep break with reality.

There is no question at all about whether Abstract Expressionism for the Ears is a great album or not. It is. The only real question is whether it crosses the line and becomes too much of a good thing. I am not sure of the answer. It certainly is both exhausting and overwhelming, but the flipside of that is that it is also an album that is not easily or quickly exhausted. 

As alluded to before, this effort is more of a deep psychedelic plunge into the skewed consciousness of the Opalio brothers than anything resembling conventional entertainment: it does not need to be immediately graspable or catchy to be successful; it only needs to be unique and absorbing. On that front, it succeeds admirably and even offers a few surprises besides. Despite its more challenging stretches, Abstract Expressionism is an ideal place to start with My Cat Is An Alien: everything they do well is not only present, but is present in Herculean doses.

Listen here.

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My Cat is an Alien, “Psycho-System” (Elliptical Noise, 2013)

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The Opalio brothers are certainly no strangers to uncompromising, indulgent mindfuckery, but their latest effort is extreme even by their own standards. Stretched out across six discs, Roberto and Maurizio use their weird arsenal of homemade instruments and détourned toys to create an absolute monolith of abstract psychedelia. Simultaneously nightmarish, overwhelming, and inspired, My Cat is an Alien have concocted an epic, brain-frying bad trip like no else before.

In the realm of crazily ambitious and dauntingly long albums, Psycho-System is very much akin to something like LaMonte Young’s The Well-Tuned Piano rather than a run-of-the-mill pile-up of new material: this is simultaneously a very narrow and a very deep album. Like Young, the Opalios essentially plunge so unapologetically deeply into their theme of choice that it gradually becomes something of a transcendent experience. 

Perhaps “one theme exhaustively explored” is a bit of a reductionist view in this case, but I think it probably provides the clearest possible view of what the duo set out to do. While the nebulous theme in question certainly evolves a lot of the course of the set’s nearly 4-hour running time, Psycho-System feels much more like a single enormous, slowly evolving epic than six discrete shorter pieces.

Structurally, most of Psycho-System can be reasonably classified as drone, but with the caveat that it generally sounds quite…well…alien. There is definitely a strong “outsider art” bent to the proceedings, as many of the sounds that the brothers generate feel uncomfortably artificial, queasy, and dissonant, like someone is horribly abusing a battery of modular synthesizers. In actually, however, it is hard to say quite what the Opalios are using to generate their otherworldly racket at any given time, as their extensive list of instrumentation includes such eccentricities as modified electronic devices, “alientronics,” and a space modulator.

Notably, however, that list also includes items like a self-made double-bodied string instrument, a handmade pocket harp, and an antique zither. Again, I have no idea which of those Maurizio is using at any given time, but there is recurrent, prominent use of a rattling stringed instrument that sounds like a koto throughout the album and that is what makes the whole thing work. Those clear, sharp, and melodic passages are the perfect foil to the rest of the album’s swirling, bubbling, buzzing, and humming otherness. Psycho-System always sounds unique, but it is at its best when its spacier, lysergic tendencies come together with its more timeless, human ones.

Not every song adheres to that vague template though. The most notable divergence is “Delirium,” which combines Roberto’s eerie wordless vocals with distantly clattering percussion and a hissing rumble to achieve an impressive degree of Kubrickian cosmic horror. Another interesting aberration is “Bipolarism,” which marries strangled-sounding guitar-like noise with insistently chirping electronics, though it later reaches an impressively crunching and cathartic percussion crescendo. 

While the two pieces sound nothing alike, they do share a common trait in that they are much more minimal and space-filled than the rest of the album. I have no idea of that was a deliberate sequencing choice or not, but the presence of two extended oases of differing density and texture makes the rest of the album’s claustrophobic, hallucinatory maelstrom much more effective and listenable.

Notably, Psycho-System‘s six pieces were all recorded in real-time single takes over a three-day span, which surprised me: there is a lot going on here and it all feels very deliberate. That goes a long way towards explaining the length though, as it takes a long time for just two loop-happy musicians to assemble the kind of snowballing unearthly racket that the Opalios have unleashed upon the world. 

Whether or not this set would have been better if it were greatly shortened by overdubbing and aggressive editing is difficult to say. It probably would be much more listenable and accessible, but I did not have much trouble making it through all six discs and I think the experience probably benefits a lot from being so exhausting and overwhelming.

Verdicts like “good” or “bad” seem irrelevant for an effort like this, which I think the Opalios understood perfectly when they were making it: Psycho-System comes with a warning sticker indicating that the album could potentially cause a psychotic break with reality with high volume and prolonged exposure. That is a remarkably apt description of my own experience, I think—MCIAA definitely delivered what they set out to do. 

Obviously, something this massive, difficult, and indulgent is probably unlikely to win the duo many new fans, but any curious aspiring psychonauts out there may rest assured that this is about as “outer limits” as music gets. Also, I am pleased to report that my own psychotic break with reality does not seem to have been permanent.

Listen here.

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Roberto Opalio, “Aurora Coelestis” (Opax/Elliptical Noise, 2014)

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Roberto Opalio’s latest solo opus is an intriguing companion piece to My Cat is an Alien’s recent Abstract Expressionism for the Ears, achieving its own uniquely altered state in a much more spontaneous, stripped-down, and (comparatively) brief fashion. Although it also contains a shorter piece built around Roberto’s processed voice, the clear raison d’être for Aurora Coelestis is the 30-minute title piece, a shimmering, dream-like tour de force birthed from perhaps the least likely of sources: a glockenspiel. Aurora is certainly a more modest effort than anything that MCIAA has been up to lately, but it is unquestionably its own strange and unique entity with its own pleasantly warped reality.

The idea of a deeply psychedelic solo glockenspiel album is certainly one that courts incredulity, but the instrument lends itself to the task at hand surprisingly well. In fact, an album like this could have probably only be made with such an instrument, though it sometimes sounds an awful lot like a vibraphone in this instance (though higher in pitch). Of course, Opalio does not only use a glockenspiel to weave his spell: the sounds are all filtered through his self-designed “alientronics,” which adds a lovely blurring and softening effect to the rippling notes. 

For the most part, “Aurora Coelestis” is a quavering, bleary thrum, but avoids ever becoming static or fully settled. The overall effect is a subtle yet beguiling one, as it is not so much a plunge into a new lysergic plane of consciousness as it is a gentle (but significant) tweaking of reality as it currently exists. Like ambient music, it does not particularly demand my direct attention, but it adds a shimmering patina of quivering surreality to my immediate surroundings whether I give it that attention or not. That said, it also holds up quite well to deeper, more focused listening, resembling an accumulating mass of uncomfortably harmonizing whines from a field full of otherworldly crickets. I cannot think of any other albums that provide that particular experience, so I will chalk that up as a definite success.

The 7-minute “Hic et Nunc” closes the album with a slightly different feel, as Roberto’s disquietingly eerie and shifting vocal drones and swooping electronics evoke the feeling of strange lights floating above a remote forest. In most other respects, however, it reprises the success of its predecessor, eschewing melody or rhythm in favor of achieving a unsettling, flickering, and drifting reverie. 

If “Hic et Nunc” has a fault, it is only that it is comparatively short, so its spell does not quite have enough time to fully take hold. Otherwise, it is every bit is unique and delightfully weird as its companion piece. Admittedly, it took Aurora a bit longer to grow on me than the last few MCIAA albums (owing to its less overtly ambitious scope and relative quiet), but it is ultimately a singular, subtly absorbing, small-scale triumph that truly sounds like no one else.

Listen here.

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My Cat Is An Alien, “Mort Aux Vaches” (Staalplaat, 2009)

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Despite its utterly mystifying and goofy lenticular packaging, My Cat Is An Alien’s contribution to Staalplaat’s long-running studio session series is a very focused, formidable, and often incendiary affair.  The Opalio brothers have a refreshingly unique and calculated aesthetic that more closely resembles an inspired evolution of free jazz than anything being done by their peers in the noise underground.

My Cat Is An Alien’s story has an improbably fairy-tale-esque origin: in 1997, Maurizio and Roberto Opalio released their debut CD-R (limited to 30 copies) and sent one to Thurston Moore. Within two months, they were making their live debut as the opening act for Sonic Youth’s Italian tour. Since then, the duo have released an ungodly number of limited edition records and CD-Rs on their own Opax label, and made split albums with underground luminaries ranging from Loren Mazzacane Connors to Mats Gustafsson to Jim O’Rourke. Notably, the Opax releases are generally housed in very arty handmade packaging, often featuring paintings by Roberto. With that historical precedent, it is difficult to process why this release looks like a gimmicky ‘80s baseball card and features a cartoon cat turning into an alien.

The exceedingly cryptic packaging gives no information about the music contained within, but Mort Aux Vaches consists of three lengthy works. The opening piece fades in with crackling vinyl, twinkling bells, and a slowly intensifying drone of gently shimmering guitars. Soon, some subtly burbling and spacey synthesizers begin to float pleasantly above the mix. However, that idyll is violently shattered by the harsh, almost animal wail of a treated guitar and the previously restrained spacey electronics increase in intensity before being ultimately engulfed in a rising surge of roaring static.

The second song is nearly half an hour long and effectively dominates the album. It begins with an incredibly dense maelstrom of chittering and oscillating sci-fi electronics augmented by cymbal flourishes and buried guitar moans. Slowly, the quivering chaos intensifies, the cymbals become more spirited, and deep tribal drums creep into the mix. Gradually the drums steal the focus, as a very insistent crash cymbal joins the pounding toms. 

Around the eight-minute mark, however, the propulsive tribalism disappears and the swirling electronic chaos asserts its supremacy once more. However, it is soon enhanced by some incredibly cathartic swooping guitar noises that sound like a family of dying elephants. Eventually, it all ebbs and a haunting ambient interlude of bells and a swelling, phase-shifting synthesizer wash emerges from the twittering, rippling electronic wreckage. That spooky foundation is maintained for an extremely long-time, but never becomes any less compelling, as an ever-shifting cloud of frothing improvised noise weirdness colors it. Shortly before the song ends, however, a mournful menagerie of strangled guitars appears and breaks the hypnotic spell.

Not unlike the first piece, the third song opens with pleasantly glistening guitar ambiance and a loop of spacey laser noises (the Opalio brothers are quite fond of incorporating toys into their work). The ambiance subtly throbs and wavers and increases in intensity until it is joined by a deep, rumbling percussion loop and feedback-heavy squalls of agonized guitar and gurgling, lurching electronics. It all coheres into a roaring, howling crescendo, then slowly fades away, leaving only a lonely ride cymbal in its wake.

There is nothing accidental or sloppy about these songs: Roberto and Maurizio make it abundantly clear that they know exactly what they are doing at all times and have recorded a decidedly complex, visceral, and textured set. I have not delved too deeply into MCIAA’s back catalog (being an MCIAA completist would result in my instant financial ruin), but it seems like this would be an excellent first album to get for anyone unfamiliar with their work. This is devastating and deliberate work—it is exceedingly rare for improvised music to work at such a gut-level.

Listen here.