Another box of delights flown in from the Opalio Brothers who call themselves My Cat Is An Alien. This Italian duo use anything they can get their hands on, from guitars with FX setups to live electronics and percussion, to create long-form droney abstractions, often packaged and titled with fanciful outer-space exploration themes to rival those of their hero, Sun Ra. They record a lot in their home studio and play live a lot also, and may be trying to prove the equal of Wolf Eyes when it comes to releasing every note of music they play. Three items currently on offer – a solo CD by Roberto Opalio is called Chants from Isolated Ghosts (IMPORTANT RECORDS imprec115), suggesting that they’re making tentative forays into the supernatural world. Roberto, who is also the visual artist half of the act, stares from the back cover with the stern conviction of John Dee, Robert Fludd, and Ramon Lull rolled into one.
Further evidence of a burgeoning interest in renaissance magick is probably to be found on their Praxinoscope release also. Entitled Epocsonixarp (OPAX RECORDS OPX 023), it’s a CDR limited to 130 copies on their personal ‘art’ imprint. The music features Roberto and the cherubic Ramona Ponzini. Their last release under this name was an eerie picture disc with plenty of melodic drone-percussion material striped heavily into its pale green vinyl markings. The magickal elements in this instance result from the simple expedient of spelling the title backward, a device used by many researchers to conceal their work from the eyes of ignorami. Dr Dee did it, for example, when recording his angelic conversations.
Finally, we’ve got the ‘classic’ My Cat Is An Alien lineup with a limited vinyl pressing of On Air at Sound Projecting (OPAX OPX 012A). This is a partial document of when the bros appeared on my radio show in late 2004 and did some live improvisations. Considering they were slightly flummoxed by lack of guitars or other familiar instruments, I think they recovered the situation quite well. My favourite part of the evening (not here) was when I interviewed them on air and, given their evident preoccupation with alien life on other planets, asked them if they had personally had an extraterrestrial experience. ‘Why should I tell you?’ was the shrewd reply of the enigmatic Roberto. 158 copies of this LP exist, previously available as a CDR.