«The debut album from Belgian composer and artist Florence Cats opens with Sunken Cathedral, an intimate interpretation of Claude Debussy’s piano prelude La Cathédrale Engloutie. As the opening notes leave the piano, it’s not the instrument’s reverberations nor Debussy’s allusive motifs that take the spotlight. Instead, attention is drawn to the rawness of the recording, the ambience of Cats’s room and the noises of her clothes. Through sections of gently ascending chords and stabs evocative of church bells, the composer and performer’s artistic voices exist on equal footing, one embracing the other. The brushing of fingers over piano keys, the resounding cluck of pedals, the rhythm of breathing and soft vocalisations become integral parts of the composition, woven into an understated lo-fi aesthetic that stands in juxtaposition with Debussy’s impressions of imposing spaces.
Cats’s penchant for absorbing moods and environmental noise into music is even more prominent on the remaining pieces. On Fall Call her DIY theremin responds to a passing thunderstorm by belching a sub-bass rumble that rises into the sound of a stuttering engine and jet-like sweeps. Then, a phone rings, perhaps on purpose.
Meanwhile, the closing Drop Out would be a pristine forest field recording, if not for Cats’s wistful, absent-minded humming that lands like a leaf among crackling trees and chirping birds to complete a sonically disparate but conceptually and emotionally resounding album.»
TheWire - Adventures in Sound and Music Magazine (march 2023)
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