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My Cat Is an Alien

Spiritual Noise_Vol.1 (LP+ Artbook)

Label: Antigravitational Records

Format: LP + Art book

Genre: Experimental

Out of stock

*2023 Black Audiophile Vinyl LP repress* Full-color jacket with 20-page Art Book mounted on cover. Includes QR codes for access to music DL & extra multimedia contents. Art by Roberto Opalio. Design by MCIAA. 

Debut release by the new Antigravitational imprint, the record label & multimedia platform created and curated by My Cat Is An Alien (MCIAA), set up with gallerist and publisher Marco Contini. "MCIAA PHASE THREE — WE BAPTIZE THE SPIRITUAL NOISE" reads Roberto Opalio’s aesthetics Manifesto: Spiritual Noise opens the third decade of activity by iconoclastic instantaneous composers, musicians, performers and visual artists Maurizio and Roberto Opalio.
Designed following principles of seriality and of installation art, each release takes the shape of a multimedia object which displays a proper artbook mounted on the LP cover jacket, and gives access to cinematic poetry films and extra contents as further investigations. Various combinations of objects and formats are intended to provide an ever-expanding universe of multistratified references and meanings.

“My Cat Is An Alien has always been very much an "outsider art" phenomenon, as the Opalio brothers have spent the last two decades tirelessly conjuring and reshaping a hermetic alternate reality replete with its own unique philosophy and cosmology. In the process, they have released some truly original and beguiling auditory dispatches from their remote home in the Alps, but music is just one part of their larger vision and that vision has drawn increasing interest from the art world. For this latest release, the brothers unveil a new collaborative imprint with gallerist and publisher Marco Contini that seeks to bring the various threads of their artistry together into a focused and harmonious whole. That endeavor is off to an excellent start, as Spiritual Noise is quite an impressive achievement as an art object. It is also an excellent album, as each of the two lengthy pieces unveils a fresh new facet of the duo's deep space trance states.

The opening "Spiritual Apocalypse" unquestionably earns at least half of its title, as it sounds like a vast, shambling intergalactic entity trudging slowly across space and time. If I were ever to accidentally reawaken one of the Old Ones by foolishly reading a cursed incantation from The Necronomicon aloud, I would definitely expect to hear sounds in a very similar vein right before the sun was blotted out and the screaming began. Uncharacteristically, "Spiritual Apocalypse" is a very percussion-driven piece, as its cumulative power centers around a slow yet relentless rhythm of seismic thuds and their shuddering aftermath. 

The mood and trajectory of "Noise Deliverance" are quite a bit different than "Spiritual Apocalypse," however, as it feels like I am slowly becoming submerged into swirling, disorienting, and vividly phantasmal pool of bizarre and ravaged sounds. 

Aside from Roberto's spectral signature vocals, Spiritual Noise feels like it could have been crafted almost entirely from haunting and mysterious transmissions picked up by the SETI institute. MCIAA have somehow managed to erase the entire accumulated musical wisdom of human civilization from their minds in order to start fresh with a radically different sensibility all their own. That is an incredible feat in general, but it is even more remarkable that something actually listenable emerged from such a categorical rejection of all things familiar to human ears. There are no recognizable chords, there are no recognizable scales (Western or Eastern), there are no recognizable instruments, and there are absolutely no apparent influences from other artists. 

Record store shelves are full of well-meaning bearded men wielding tablas and tamburas, hellbent on prying open my third eye or kicking down my doors of perception. Some of them have made some absolutely wonderful albums, but none have gone as far as My Cat Is An Alien.” – Anthony D’Amico

“Art is... nothing... if not vision. / Vision is... nothing... if not poetry. / Poetry is... nothing... if not music. / Music is... nothing... if not noise. / Noise is... nothing... if not spirit. / Spirit is... nothing... if not love.” Thurston Moore, 2019 (dedication poem to My Cat Is An Alien’s Spiritual Noise).

Details
Cat. number: NTG-0999
Year: 2019
Notes:

Maurizio Opalio – self-made double-bodied string instrument, pedal effects
Roberto Opalio – wordless vocalizations, modified analog drum machine, pedal effects, alientronics

Instantaneous compositions performed, recorded and mixed by My Cat Is An Alien in their secret Alien Zone HQs in Western Alps; January 1-2, 2019.
Mastering by Fabrizio Ronco.
Produced by MCIAA.