She looks like the person who slept at Comic Con and woke up in a bondage shop, and her new album "Encores" is even more bizarre. Imagine classical music shoved headfirst into a shredder of industrial depravity.
She's fast, yes, but it's speed with a dash of fear added. There is art in her fingers, she'd probably be able to restring a violin balancing scalpels, but the result is this blur wherein Paganini's spirit is chuckling or suing. Half the time I'm not even certain if I'm astonished or just sick.
Thirty songs. Thirty-six minutes. "Encores" is not an album in the traditional sense. It's a seizure. This is...for whatever reason...THE GREAT KAT...
"Paganini’s Caprice No. 9": She murders Paganini so fast, he skipped rolling in his grave and went straight to pole-dancing on it. "Sarasate’s Malaguena": A Spanish dance, now performed by someone who sounds like they’ve never even danced socially. Or had friends.
"Leather Britches Guitar": This sounds more like pleather pants rubbing up against one another as someone cries in a Hot Topic dressing room and less like leather britches. "Santa Lucia Guitar": What is more cliché for the tearful Italian serenade than a woman crying over the violin as if screaming for help from the back of a speeding car.
"Cumberland Gap Guitar": – A folk tune. And nothing captures the spirit of Appalachian mountain folk like a Juilliard grad in fishnets screaming at ghosts. "Pizzazz": The only thing this track pizzazzes is my migraine.
"Paganini’s Caprice No. 14": At this point, Kat isn’t covering Paganini, she’s just speed-dating his corpse. "Pizzicato by Delibes": Delibes wrote this to sound light and cheerful. Kat plays it like she's auditioning for the slasher film with a busted lawnmower.
"Joplin's The Entertainer": Consider a stripper emerging to this, but she trips immediately, breaks her teeth, and keeps dancing. "Minute Waltz": Chopin wrote it to be performed in a minute. Kat finishes it before you can say, "This was a mistake."
"Shredssissimo": Not a word, not a style, but a cry for help. "Nessun Dorma": Puccini's master aria of victory. Kat brings it down to the whine of a dying microwave.
"Dixie": She dares to play "Dixie." Considering this album already has enough sins against humanity. "The Flight of the Bumblebee": – Rimsky-Korsakov gave us buzzing chaos. Kat gives us a wasp sting inside your ear canal.
"Blue Danube Waltz": Strauss wanted waltzing elegance. Kat delivers the soundtrack to a drunk uncle vomiting into a wedding cake. "Caprice No. 24": Paganini’s most famous piece. Kat treats it like an ex-boyfriend she found on Tinder: fast, messy, and ultimately regrettable.
By the end, I wasn’t clapping “Encore". I was calling the emergency services.
Score: Paganini’s ghost just called. He wants his dignity back. Words: Matt Denny.
She's fast, yes, but it's speed with a dash of fear added. There is art in her fingers, she'd probably be able to restring a violin balancing scalpels, but the result is this blur wherein Paganini's spirit is chuckling or suing. Half the time I'm not even certain if I'm astonished or just sick.
Thirty songs. Thirty-six minutes. "Encores" is not an album in the traditional sense. It's a seizure. This is...for whatever reason...THE GREAT KAT...
"Paganini’s Caprice No. 9": She murders Paganini so fast, he skipped rolling in his grave and went straight to pole-dancing on it. "Sarasate’s Malaguena": A Spanish dance, now performed by someone who sounds like they’ve never even danced socially. Or had friends.
"Leather Britches Guitar": This sounds more like pleather pants rubbing up against one another as someone cries in a Hot Topic dressing room and less like leather britches. "Santa Lucia Guitar": What is more cliché for the tearful Italian serenade than a woman crying over the violin as if screaming for help from the back of a speeding car.
"Cumberland Gap Guitar": – A folk tune. And nothing captures the spirit of Appalachian mountain folk like a Juilliard grad in fishnets screaming at ghosts. "Pizzazz": The only thing this track pizzazzes is my migraine.
"Paganini’s Caprice No. 14": At this point, Kat isn’t covering Paganini, she’s just speed-dating his corpse. "Pizzicato by Delibes": Delibes wrote this to sound light and cheerful. Kat plays it like she's auditioning for the slasher film with a busted lawnmower.
"Joplin's The Entertainer": Consider a stripper emerging to this, but she trips immediately, breaks her teeth, and keeps dancing. "Minute Waltz": Chopin wrote it to be performed in a minute. Kat finishes it before you can say, "This was a mistake."
"Shredssissimo": Not a word, not a style, but a cry for help. "Nessun Dorma": Puccini's master aria of victory. Kat brings it down to the whine of a dying microwave.
"Dixie": She dares to play "Dixie." Considering this album already has enough sins against humanity. "The Flight of the Bumblebee": – Rimsky-Korsakov gave us buzzing chaos. Kat gives us a wasp sting inside your ear canal.
"Blue Danube Waltz": Strauss wanted waltzing elegance. Kat delivers the soundtrack to a drunk uncle vomiting into a wedding cake. "Caprice No. 24": Paganini’s most famous piece. Kat treats it like an ex-boyfriend she found on Tinder: fast, messy, and ultimately regrettable.
By the end, I wasn’t clapping “Encore". I was calling the emergency services.
Score: Paganini’s ghost just called. He wants his dignity back. Words: Matt Denny.
RSS Feed