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Out Now!
MY CAT IS AN ALIEN with RAMONA PONZINI & LEE RANALDO 'All Is Lost In Translation' CD / DL (ATAVISTIC, USA - ALP196CD)
"Bella Italia avant garde meets Sonic-Youth guitar guru!
The Brothers Opalio return with their second collaborative album for Atavistic. This time MY CAT IS AN ALIEN have teamed up with RAMONA PONZINI (vocals/Japanese percussion, and LEE RANALDO
(guitars/bells/vocals) for a 2008 session, captured live in Verona, Italy. Like the extant MCIAA tapestry of international collaborations, 'All Is Lost In Translation' continues their spectacular latter-day exploration of the outer reaches, and further defines their well-earned role as alchemical auteur-artists." (label info)
Maurizio Opalio - electric guitar, percussion Roberto Opalio - wordless vocalizations, electric guitar, space toys, alientronics Ramona Ponzini - vocals, lyrics taken from Yosano Akiko's poems, Japanese wind chimes & hand percussion Lee Ranaldo - lyrics and vocals, electric guitar, bells Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio
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Read THE WIRE review by Ken Hollings - The Wire #323 January 2011
"Despite the drug-fuelled paranoia suggested by their adopted name, Maurizio and Roberto Opalio show a quiet concentration in the pursuit of their loose electronic aesthetic. This reunion with longtime collaborator Ramona Ponzini and Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo is a case in point. They first played together in June of 2008, joined onstage by New Zealand Noise artist Michael Morley for a set released on CD as 'Sensational Fix'. On 8 October of that same year the quartet reconvened in Verona for a second concert together, and the results are the two taut excursions presented here.
The Opalio brothers show a rare gift for opening up a space for possibilities during their performances, and the resultant interplay of electric guitars, effects pedals, metallic percussion, battery-operated sci-fi toys and distracted vocals shows Ponzini and Ranaldo responding in kind. In some respects, the combination of Ponzini's Japanese wind chimes and handheld percussion with Ranaldo's distinctive guitar stylings only serve to duplicate the mutant Krautrock lurking at the heart of My Cat Is An Alien's explorations of sound - the familiar slashing, glimmering cosmic tones are extended, broken up and deepened by their contributions. It is actually as vocal performers that they bring this four-way exchange into focus.
Ponzini's called repetition of lines composed by Japanese feminist poet Akiko Yosano, counterbalanced by Ranaldo's own repeated allusions to violent misunderstandings, bring an impassive edge to the collective playing.
'All is lost in translation', Ranaldo exclaims in the second of these untitled sequences before returning once again to the obsessive refrain 'She kicked me in the head', which recurs throughout the set.
Drug-fuelled paranoia as rarely been expressed so neatly."
(Ken Hollings)
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