Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat

Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat is the music project of Stef Heeren which saw the light in 2005 with it’s debut record ‘If the sky falls, we shall catch larks’ on the adventurous Kraak label. Inspired by alternative folk acts such as Current 93 and Six Organs Of Admittance, Stef commenced on an solo musical embarkment after the demise of several punk bands he was involved in. The band’s name is translated as “doing black magic” and pretends to glorify counterculture. Because of it’s notoriety, the name was offered a spot in The Wire’s top ten list of “most absurd band names ever”.
 
Heeren’s blend of alternative folk and ethnic drone sounds on his debut album was received positively worldwide by press and public and in the wake of the first concerts Stef surrounded himself with fellow musicians to perform his music with a band. It is out of this context that the next albums of Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat grew. Broadening it’s sound, adding drums, bass and electric guitars, the band released it’s next albums “An interlude to the Outermost” (2007) and “The Nebulous Dreams” (2008).
 
With this line-up the band toured Europe in support of Daniel Higgs (Lungfish) and was invited by hosts as Domino Festival (Brussels), State X New Forms (Den Haag) and Summer Darkness Festival (Utrecht) among others.
 
In the meantime, through various ways of sound exploration, a new world opened up before Heeren. The only electric or electronic instruments Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat have ever used until then were limited to guitar and organ. By coincidence and persistence, Stef got his hands on an old Roland Juno 6 analogue synthesizer and was immediately blown away by it’s capabilities. In a way Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat have always been about sound, rather than actual songwriting and the introduction to synthesizers simply enriched the old recipe.
 
With a taste for new wave music and again under the supervision of producer Koen Gisen Heeren recorded the album ‘Weltuntergangsstimmung’ at Koen’s studio ‘La Patrie’ in the fall of 2011 using only an old drum machine, analogue synths and chorused guitars. Matthias Debusschere provided chorused bass lines and An Pierlé delivered backing vocals. Musically, the core of Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat’s ingredients remain intact, but it’s arguably a bit more music to dance to than in the past. And thematically, Stef’s lyric writing got more transparent, omitting biblical references and focussing on personal themes such as disillusionment and alienation. ‘Weltuntergangsstimmung’ indeed.