Number 9 of 2005 — Kelli Ali: Psychic Cat

Kelli Ali’s career launched when she became the lead singer in Sneaker Pimps. Their debut album, Becoming X was an album that pushed the trip-hop sound more into the mainstream, to critical acclaim, but not commercial success in the UK. The US however, lapped them up, and one year of touring left the band’s relationship in tatters, culminating in Kelli leaving. She spent time travelling then sat down to start writing songs. Inspired by co-writing songs with Satoshi Tomiie she started sending demos to record companies. Most wanted a facsimile of Sneaker Pimps, but Derek Birkett from One Little Indian offered her the opportunity to make her own music. Her debut, Tigermouth, was released in 2003. The follow-up, Psychic Cat, inspired by a meeting with a psychic cat on 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica, came in 2004.

Kelli writes that “I wanted to try and capture a spirit of freedom and beauty that I felt was always there”. The opening two tracks, Hot Lipps and Psychic Cat meet these objectives. The first is psychedelic 70’s rock which leads into the second track: acoustic guitars, half dark trip-hop, half techno bashing. Both underpinned by girly choruses and breathy vocals.

Speakers is buzzy anti-capitalism rant: “Where’s the love? Where’s the love? Inside the melody that’s lickin’ your speakers?”, or as Kelli writes on her website “Greed and ignorance is what they want to feed us, need to feed us so that in our comfortable lethargy, we dream of one day being rich and famous and perfect instead of lost and bored and confused, the fat cats can sneak out into the big old mother world and rape her for all she’s worth. They treat nature like a whore and make justice and liberty a joke.” But there’s no stopping the tunes. The entire album is simply a collection of expertly crafted songs. It eschews commercialism, whilst being effortlessly commercial.

Case in point is Home Honey I’m High. A truly stoned immaculate song grabbing handfuls of Vienna, Cars and sneaking in a bit of a nod to Soft Cell: “Run baby run / I’m your setting sun / Hello, goodbye / Home honey I’m high”. Essex electro via Altered Images.

There is experimentation. Ideal features visceral guitar work from Primal Scream’s Andrew Innes and more techno bashing (Joey Beltram plays pop?) before an unexpected drop into two minutes of acid dub. In Praise of Shadows exploits Kelli’s dreamy vocals with an exhaled intro, providing a nice balance to the previous song. But despite the kitchen-sink “let’s try this” approach to each song, there is an overall continuity throughout the album. No track feels wholly out of place. And there’s attention to detail, lyrically and musically. Graffiti Boy features the opening line “Hey man, you shake my heart like a spray can”, subtle extra hi-hats on the second verse and one-off backing vocals. It’s exquisite. Voyeur is even more loved-up.

Groupie has more rainbow smiles, taking the psychedelia of earlier songs and weaving a chilled ambient love song. The extraordinarily beautiful chorus is unexpected, as is the use of Detroit-techno style strings.

However, the closing track Last Boy on Earth doesn’t quite work as a final track. It’s an acoustic number, being thematically out of place with the preceding tracks. Perhaps it should have appeared earlier on, with the closing tracks being Voyeur and a faded-out mix of Groupie. But this is a minor issue, because Kelli Ali’s second album is particularly impressive.

Biography
Psychic Cat [iTunes]
Writing Psychic Cat
Recording Psychic Cat