Critical eye: the Cat comes back...Wolfli at the door...and a romantic Dahliance. (Reviews).

W, February, 2003 by Gell, Aaron

MUSIC

Fashion muse and downtown antidiva Chan marshall, known as CAT POWER, is as famous for her cathartic, soul-bearing concerts-cum-nervous breakdowns (like the time she became so distraught at a show in New York that her band left the stage) as for her raw and often breathtaking grunge-ballacry. She begins the terrific You Are Free--here first collection of original songs since 1988's Moon Pix--by revisiting those moments of onstage torment, forgiving herself and moving on. "I Don't Blame You" is a heart-stopping piano number (less a torch song than a blowtorch song) composed, like the bulk of this collection, out of just a few naked chords, as hesitant as just-hatched chicks. "The last time I saw you, you were onstage," the track begins. "Your hair was...

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