The Cats Never Sleep
Switzerland’s The Cats Never Sleep recently released their album Massage via Le Pop Club Records (home of Satellite Jockey & more), presenting both a listen along with some insights. The album offers an electric adventure of eclectic shred fests & inventive song suites for the senses that are certain to transport you to the scuzzier sides of the Alps.
Massage opens with the chord avalanche of “Kinshasa Düsseldorf”, to the night scene gazing “Parasol”, the throwback instrumental of “Les Cow – Boys”, to the highway trucking roadway sounds of “Wide Open”, the psych sky streaked “Whales in the Clouds”, to the cloud crashing electric lightning clasps of “Vishnou”. The group takes a snack break on the humorous “Hummus”, to the tropical fruit dreaming “Mango”, kicking it in motorik fashions on “Nakata”, right before lifting you off your feet and into the exit of “Pelican”.
The band shared the following reflections on Massage:
Massage was recorded in November 2015 at Kerwax Studios. Located in Loguivy-Plougras in the north of France, it is an ancient catholic boys’ school turned into an all analog recording studio wonderland. The whole session took five days and every song’s basic track was recorded live with overdubs and vocals added later on. The album’s original full working title was Tokyo Spa Massage 2052, which set the tone for the cover long before the actual photo was taken. The album was conceived during some kind of transitive phase as it features both older and newer (at the time) tunes. We’d been playing for three years and had gone through a few different genres without committing anything to tape, so our minds were filled with various desires concerning the songwriting process. We were trying to make some kind of groove influenced prog-pop with hints of library music, Afrobeat and straight 70s rock. We wanted the record to be both dark and cheerful at times. And we ended with a weird album that goes in many directions, which is fine with us even though we feel like it is misunderstood most of the time. The songs we are working on at the moment are even weirder but somehow more cohesive and focused, but that’ll be for LP number two.
