Cat Power (Photo by Mario Sorrenti)
Cat Power, the vocalist, songwriter, musician and producer Chan Marshall, will release her new album Covers on Jan. 14, via Domino. Soon thereafter, Chan performs at Lincoln Theatre on Friday, April 15.
Last fall, Chan unveiled a music video for “Pa Pa Power” — Marshall’s rendition of the Dead Man’s Bones song — along with her return to the road with a full band headlining 32-date tour that will cross the US from January to May.
On deciding to record “Pa Pa Power,” Chan said: “I started playing this solo in 2012 (originally more dissonant and trance-y), when the Occupy Wall street protests were going on. Occupy was bunkering down and saying, ‘This shit’s fucking fucked up.’ And helping citizens be a voice in their local government. They got a lot of good things done, but the American media killed the movement. I felt like this song was relative to that. The American media has always penalized any sort of social progressiveness and is always the first to express conservative rhetoric against something that is beneficial to the nation. I’d open with this song on the 2013 China tour. ‘Burn the streets, burn the cars.’”
Watch the official music video for Dead Man’s Bones’ “Pa Pa Power” by Cat Power on YouTube:
Cover songs have always occupied a crucial place in the Marshall canon, and Covers completes a trilogy of sorts, following beloved past Cat Power collections Jukebox (2008) and The Covers Record (2000). While she frequently delights and surprises with the songs she chooses to cover, it’s Marshall’s total commitment to the performance — imbuing the songs with a creative singularity that rivals her original work — that make Cat Power covers so special. Says Pitchfork, Marshall can “rearrange a song simply by squinting at it.”
Produced in its entirety by Chan, Covers features fully reimagined songs by Frank Ocean, Bob Seger, Lana Del Rey, Jackson Browne, Iggy Pop, The Pogues, Nick Cave and The Replacements and more, plus an updated rendition of her own song “Hate” from The Greatest (2006), retitled “Unhate” for this album.
Cat Power
Lincoln Theatre
Friday, April 15
Doors @ 7pm
$40
All ages