CAT TEMPER - Furbidden Planet
Review by Mike Templar
CAT TEMPER is the solo project of Boston, Massachusetts "meowsician" Mike Langlie. Mike has played several styles of music over the years including synthpunk, gothic and industrial. Some of his bands were known for causing chaos at small clubs that rarely asked them to come back.
His longest running project Twink The Toy Piano Band defined the toytronica genre and could be heard in many TV shows in the US on networks like MTV, Comedy Central and Nickelodeon. He has collaborated with many musicians, including Fred Schneider of The B-52s for an album of punk style covers of novelty songs made famous on the legendary Dr. Demento radio show.
In 2019 Mike debuted his latest project Cat Temper mixing retro synthpop, electro, hair metal and even 8-bit video-game sounds into a wild mélange he calls "meowave." In just a few years he's released 9 albums exploring concepts such as an imaginary 1980s sci-fi soundtrack (Digital Soul), a tribute to one of his musical inspirations Nine Inch Nails (Kitty Hate Machine) and a full re-score of his favourite David Lynch film Eraserhead: “Henry: An Electronic Soundtrack to Eraserhead".
His latest album Furbidden Planet is described as an instrumental audio adventure following two brave catstronauts across the galaxy as they investigate a meow-sterious signal from the depths of space. What they discover changes everything for all felinekind.
The album begins with dreamy synth strings and, one could almost say, harmonic catcalls before a pulsating bass kicks in and rhythmic melodies begin. The song Catstronauts Are Go is a fantastic adventure that perfectly covers the cinematic theme of the album and would fit into the album movie of the same name. It is very varied and contains different melodies and sounds and yet it is a beautiful composition from one cast. From the first track it becomes clear that the album is very much in the realm of spacewave - I look forward to listening further.
The next song, Vapour Tails, starts with spherical sounds familiar from 70s science fiction feature films and is a mysterious journey through the dark corners of space where all sorts of stray cats lurk. This is the image I get when listening to the slightly ominous chords in the background and the roaring bass, which is punctuated by a hopeful rising and falling melody and some chiptune elements.
Telepurrtation comes with tinny synths and a mysterious and whistling synthesiser and melodies that slowly evolve through the piece while probably our two Catstronauts look around the desert for the Meowndalorian one could conclude!
Impossible Artifacts is a fast track with typical 80s drums that starts metal-like and then later opens up with an airy synth. Again, the different parts of the song are excellently intertwined and the chosen spacey synthesizers complement each other perfectly before the track fades out with a delay effect.
Continuing with one of my favourites, A Meowsage From Space, the song also begins with what I consider typical 70s science fiction sounds while a repetitive one-note bass slowly kicks in and is then joined by dark sounds in the background before the solo melody kicks in, which includes a note off the scale (I think…), enhancing the rather dreadful mood of the song. At times, a deep male chorus enters. Later, a heavily distorted guitar joins in. The piece contains no percussion and could hold up for any suspense buildup in a horror movie. Maybe Cat Temper will put the movie The Thing (1982) to music again, like he did with Eraserhead…!
Space Oddkitty is a dance-like song with Linn drums, if I'm not mistaken, that Cat Temper uses from time to time. There are spacey synths in use here as well, and the element of an opening synth playing an airy melody in the background. Absolutely great spacewave music with a lot of detail work.
The songs Cataclysm perfectly follows the previous one, as if it were a continuation of the story before it. Here, too, synthesiser sounds are used, which could have come from science fiction anime series from the 70s. Another proof of a sophisticated sound choice of this album. The song has a key change in the later course, which leads to the conclusion of the song.
The Anomewly is also a rather darkwavey song with strong bass and brass synths interspersed with a bright string synth that features a questioning melody. Later, bubbling water sounds and a scrubbing synth come in while a metal guitar plucks rhythmic chords.
Because of the next song Changing Purrception it becomes clear that Cat Temper uses percussion very purposefully and also lets songs run without intervening with drums at any time. A little later a fast catchy beat starts and a chiptune melody is added that is decorated with laser-like noises.
The last song A Mew Beginning has Stranger-Things-quality to it and probably points to a continuation of the story of our two Catstronauts? It's a nice slow synth ballad that also features a key change and brings the album to a questioning close.
Cat Temper never fails to make a cross reference to cats when naming his songs and albums; such is the case with the space odyssey Furbidden Planet. The album shines with excellent compositions, great synthesiser choices, with exciting changes in the tracks and tension generation. The album could very well be used for an anime science fiction series and joins the crowd of great albums by Cat Temper, but in my opinion the first that can prove itself as skilful spacewave and this Cat Temper has shown with bravura.
For more Cat Temper, visit cattemper.com
