Or a Cat-like Guarantee?

 

What’s the deal with jazz and cats? One can go down quite a rabbit hole to discover why musicians in the jazz world call each other “cats”, in my interpretation it’s something to do with the skill of improvisation – or maybe adaptation to an environment – or something along those lines. Quite cute. 

Jazz is also linked to sex. The name of the genre is actually derived from, and hiding in the centre of the word “Orgasm”, due to the fact that early jazz clubs were places of social dancing. If you feel it a stretch, regard other genres: “Blues” for example evokes double-entendre, when something is blue it suggests a secondary meaning as sexual innuendo. “Rock’n’Roll” is pretty self-explanatory in this particular context, though I would extend this analysis to more local (i.e. Finnish) forms of social music-and-dancing events as well; for example “Humppa” (the music played in Lavatanssi) holds this connotation of physical movement, bodies bumping into each other. 

I bring these associations to light as given Jazz’s link with cats and sex, the possibility of linking cats and sex emerges – Of course it’s not always the case, but I have noticed this relationship from the humanoid cat characters of Andrew Loyd Webber’s Cats musical, which is essentially a dating programme set to tedious music. Somehow, companions of the domicile have become slinky salacious creatures, loitering and strutting in the dark, parading the streets of even the world’s most dangerous cities.

Having had a pet cat in childhood, I’m trying to recollect from where we actually got her. As far as I know, she just waltzed into our lives one day off the street and that was that. No adoption place, no vet, no bureaucracy – a species that exists with society, but in complete obscurity from it. 

So maybe it’s this aspect of the modern cat that marries the topics mentioned above. They represent the marginalised communities in our society, unheard voices, discarded individuals and so on. But also, they represent the secret and private recesses of our individual minds – the things we don’t dare to admit, nor care to share. 

 

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All that said, I can say that I relate to cats on many levels, so when this cheery album entered the mailbox I was both rolling my eyes and filled with playful anticipation.

BlaaBlaaBlaa’s first LP release KISSAVAL TAKUNTA  (“Cat Kingdom” or “A Cat-like Guarantee”) certainly commits into this cat thing. The record is partially composed, meaning, there was perhaps some idea or image informing the musicians which could be considered a score of sorts, in particular the titles reveal this.

Of the trio of Guitar, Double Bass and Drums, it’s true that by far the guitar is the most catty – an almost consistent fuzzy distortion on  Katti Nyström’s guitar steals the show with many instances of dynamic and spunky playing across the whole disc. Noteworthy are the opening number “Jari”, dripping and gliding around the fretboard with the lubricated ease of Allan Holdsworth’s Metal Fatigue, always pushing further out into ever more dissonant and expressive territory.

Following this, “Sound Check / Dance Check / Blues Check” constitutes slinky pentatonic phrases punctuating the abstract backing, and finally the absolutely perfectly length “Kissavaltakunta Suite: I. Hymni”, which boasts an odd yet utterly complete guitar solo of 0’38” in length.

Apart from a commitment to some musical images and an even story line, the trio has an almost dodecaphonic melodic style – that is, an angular, non symmetrical quality. In the heart of the record, lounges yet another  languid and sleazy guitar solo; “Amalia”, marries perhaps the best communion of bass and guitar of this project: The music is sparse, each note placed off-off-off beat and at different interval from the last, and yet, they catch each other wrapped up in a style that gets my tail wagging. I was reminded of Stravinsky’s “Owl and the Pussycat”, which baffled me as a young music student, but I find it quite charming now.  

Toward the end of the disc sits a little trilogy “Kissavaltakunta Suite” (Cat Kingdom Suite) with three movements, that outline the bureaucratic rites of this imaginary cat kingdom:

I. Hymmni (“National Anthem”)
II. Kongreesi Koolla (“Congress in session”)
III. Hyvin meni, tärkeitä päätöksiä saatiin tehtyä (“It went well, important decisions were made”)

The aforementioned “Hymnni” is perfection (or purrfect), what follows is a, perhaps intentionally, long and arduous meeting in “Kongreesi Koolla”. Finally, the result which consists of some serious meowing – its beuroCATic legalise at its most indecisive, brilliant.

The drums of Jesse Ojajärvi are at their best when not serving jazz directly; the highly tuned toms’ brushed skins already place the sonic identity of the group into that category, as does the bubbling and plodding resonances of Joonas Tuuri’s upright bass.

In the very opening of the record, a little game is played with the listener: bass or drum? Emerging so similar in timbre and attack, that I can barely tell the difference myself, even after multiple listens. As a natural result of the guitar embodying the lead; bass and drums remain bedfellows for much of the record, climaxing in the only instance of groove of the record in the final track “Kissojen kuninkaan uudet vaatteet” (“The King of Cats’ New Clothes”). 

This holds particular significance on the record as the longest track alongside its ultimate positioning. The guitar dissipates into a hallucinogenic boil of synthy effects, giving space for the rhythm section to get a groove on. A sentiment that describes not only this final pulsing gesture but the record as a whole might go something like this:

I certainly got an impression of some debaucherous cat-nip fuelled party, in some smokey-club, and its chock full of cats.

 

Listen to the album