Cat Power: Dark End Of The Street EP

The first time I heard Chan Marshall sing a song by someone else wasn’t on last January’s Jukebox, and it wasn’t on The Covers Record from 2000. It was her rendition of Bob Dylan’s arrangement of the traditional song ‘Moonshiner’ on her incredible album Moonpix (which remains my favourite to this day…) when she sang:

“I go to some hollow,
And sit at my still
And if whiskey don’t kill me,
Then I don’t know what will”

I was hooked and happy to be. The Cat Power of 1998 is a different one to the one of today, (for reasons I am sure are endlessly blogged about elsewhere) but I have consistently enjoyed what Chan and her ever revolving gang have turned their hands to. On this release the gang includes the exceptional drummer Jim White (Dirty Three) and former members of the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion.

When the lazy stabbing violins and distant bass drum thumps ushered in her rendition of Creedence Clearwater’s ‘Fortunate Son’, the second song on this six song release, my hopes were up. Despite the pretty obvious theme being that the masters of war rarely send themselves or their kin to the fields where their contracts of slaughter are horrifically realised, it is a nuanced protest song. Cat Power strip it down to a gorgeous, hazy rebellion, without diminishing its impact one bit.

When The Greatest came out a couple of years back I liked it. I knew she was unlikely to make another Moonpix or even another You Are Free and I got over that, as she’s already made them once. Then came Jukebox, which was a step away from its predecessor, but somehow still in the same bracket (like Dylan’s Time Out Of Mind and Love And Theft). But as this release sounds like yet another add on to the mostly covers Jukebox (there was already a bonus disc for some editions) I am starting to look for signs that she might take another left turn soon: the soles on her reverb drenched New York-walking shoes are starting to wear thin. The Otis Redding penned ‘I’ve Been Loving You Too Long’ is pretty good, but I couldn’t imagine a singer of her calibre ruining an Otis Redding tune anyhow. So it gets a no surprises tag.

Don’t get me wrong, the arrangements are all good and the atmosphere is an authentic, aching romanticism. There are no bad songs, but I did find the Sandy Denny cover ‘Who Knows Where The Time Goes’ the most lacklustre. Then again, for someone who already knows and loves the original, or has never heard a Sandy Denny song it could be a quiet revelation. The album is book ended by two Aretha Franklin tunes, the best being the title track (which Franklin co-wrote with James Carr). If ‘Dark End Of The Street’ had come out as a seven inch, with ‘Fortunate Son’ on the b side, it would have been a fitting, if temporary, farewell to this Cat Power covers era. But personally I’m weary of the style that props up the bulk of this release.

But hey, if you got to the end of Jukebox and unlike me were still aching for more then you may well find that this (download & limited edition double ten-inch vinyl!) EP will tide you over the release void of December & January. I just imagined a scenario where Jukebox hadn’t been released and the great many Cat Power fans, including myself were getting pretty impatient. In that scenario I might have given this a higher rating, as an intriguing glimpse into where Cat was at… However, in reality this is not enough of an aftershock to wholly capture my imagination in the way her records usually do, despite those two great songs.