SUN - 2012 : speculations

A quelques semaines (croisons les doigts) de la probable sortie du nouvel album de Cat Power, le moment semble approprié pour faire le point sur ce que nous savons et sur ce que nous espérons.

Le Titre.
Depuis plusieurs années maintenant, et avant même que Jukebox soit envisagé, le futur album était déjà connu sous le nom de "SUN". Un titre qui pourrait bien évidemment changer mais qu'a néanmoins encore utilisé Chan Marshall lors d'un récent "tweet".
edit: l'album s'appellera bien SUN.

La date de sortie.
Aux dernières nouvelles, ce ne serait pas avant la fin avril: après le festival de Coachella évoquait Chan Marshall il y a 1 mois.
edit: officiel: le disque sortira le 11 septembre 2012.

Le contenu.
On sait que Chan sera quasiment la seule à jouer sur l'album, à l'exception de Jim White sur le titre "Sittin on a Ruin".
Concernant la liste des chansons, nous savons juste que "Sittin on a Ruin" sera présente, tandis que "Time Great Healer" n'en fera pas partie.
Bref, on ne sait pas grand chose.
Parmi les titres que l'ont peut facilement imaginer présents sur l'album final, les chansons inédites jouées depuis l'an dernier:

Cherokee
Bully
Let Me Go
Sittin on a Ruin
A woman of my word
Monster
Brave Liar
Horizon
Real Life

La conception
L'album est en gestation depuis environ 5/6 ans. Il était initialement prévu que le disque soit enregistré et sorte avant Jukebox. Dans certaines interviews de l'époque, Chan raconte que les chansons sont là, qu'il n'y a plus qu'à les enregistrer. Depuis la sortie de Jukebox, Chan Marshall a beaucoup composé, et l'album tel qu'il sortira ne sera pas celui qui serait sorti il y a 5 ans: de très nombreuses chansons resteront dans les tiroirs.

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Within a few weeks (cross your fingers), a new Cat Power album should be released, so it seemed the perfect moment to talk about what we know about this record.

The title.
For years now, even before we heard anything about Jukebox, the future album was known as "SUN". Chan Marshall confirmed on tweeter that SUN will be the title of the album.

Release date
According to Chan Marshall herself on twitter, it should be released after Coachella festival, maybe by the end of April.
edit: Chan Marshall "tweeted" that the album will be released on september 11th.

What is supposed to be on the record

"Sun" will be a real solo album: Chan should be the only musician on the album with one exception: Jim White on "Sittin on a Ruin".
The only thing we know for sure about the track list is that "Sittin on a ruin" will be on the record and that "Time Great Healer" won't be.
The following unrealeased songs, which were regularly sung on stage last year are strong contenders for the album:

Cherokee
Bully
Let Me Go
Sittin on a Ruin
A woman of my word
Monster
Brave Liar
Horizon
Real Life

Conception
The album has been on gestation for years. It was first scheduled to release it before "Jukebox". After "The Greatest", Chan Marshall stated that the songs for "Sun" were already written but since the release of "Jukebox", she wrote many more songs and SUN will be very different than what it would have been 4 years ago.

Cat Power has alot of unreleased tracks. Many of them have been played live and many have not been heard.

Fun (Peter Lofton cover)

Recorded during session for "Headlights" single. Unreleased.

Going all the way back to the 1998 Greg Weeks Interview she mentions:

Theres this song (by Debbey Richardson) I've been covering of hers for about four years and I finally
recorded it.

Debbey Richardson Cover
What is this song?

Yeah. The other song that was written that night, it was called "Staleyyawn," like a place.
Like a transcendental state of being. Sort of a relaxing... Staley's like a horse name, like a young horse.
And that's not going to be released until later. And I changed that one to "When On The Mountaintops."

Mountaintops - 7:30
Jump Baby Jump - 2:10
These 2 songs appear on bootleg. They dont sound like live or radio session performances. Where did they come from?

Rare Book Room Recordings
This was mentioned as a whole unreleased album recorded around the time of The Covers Record. It was said that many of the songs ended up on You Are Free. From her interview with the San Francisco Bay Guardian, she said she recorded a cover of Mary J. Blige's "Deep Inside".

You Are Free Outtakes
It was said that the album was narrowed down from 40 tracks recorded.

Sun
From the 9/20/06 New York Times Interview: Her next album, “Sun,” is already written.

From the 11/22/06 Spin Interview: One song is called "Leopard," I used to sing it when I was
26. There's another song, a spiritual song called "Mountaintops." And there's a really sweet song called
"Funny Things" that's like a little kid's tap-dance song about having special secret thoughts: "Funny things in your dreams/Can you whisper talk to me?" And then there's "Silent Machine," which I actually wrote a long time ago. There's another song called "Oh Time." It's about my ex and it's about forgiveness. My friend Susanna always cries when I play it.

From the 10/XX/07 - Papermag.com Interview: She plans to hole up on an island somewhere to write songs for Sun, a new album featuring all original material.

From the 1/23/08 - Rolling Stone Interview: There's an old one called "Leopard and the Lamb," which means a lot to me. There's "Real Life," it's a really super positive song. There's another one — there are about twelve or fourteen — "Wind on the Mountaintops," "Time," "Great Healer," "Let Sadness Not Be Attached to Your Name," "Native American Song." There's a lot of songs — "Why" is one of the names.

Leopard And The Lamb
Mountaintops
Funny Things
Silent Machine
Oh Time
Real Life
Let Sadness Not Be Attached To Your Name
Native American Song
Why

I suppose all of these songs were contenders since they were mentioned in the interviews. "Native American Song" must be "Cherokee". "Why" must be the song refered to as "Make Me Feel So Bad" or "Baby Blue".

From the 1/XX/11 Xpressmag Interview: "The album was going to be mostly songs I’d already written. But now, some time later, I’m not recording the older songs I had thought were going to be the core of Sun, and I’ve written more songs…”

Based on that I'd say most of her older songs are out of the running and we'll get all the newer songs she has been performing. I hope afew of the older ones make it to the record though or at least onto some type of release if she did record them.

Nice summary! If you don't mind, i'll try to translate it in french.
Something is very clear, Chan piled up so much material that if she really wants to do it, she could release a double or triple album! This is amazing and almost insane! Free your songs Chan!

https://i.servimg.com/u/f45/17/25/78/57/cp11.jpg

Photo provenant de l'instagram de Chan

Sab79 wrote:https://i.servimg.com/u/f45/17/25/78/57/cp11.jpg

Photo provenant de l'instagram de Chan

Tous ces nouveaux sites de réseaux sociaux vont me faire tourner en bourrique: il y en a trop!
Qu'est-ce qu'on a là? Une bande master? Je serais très curieux de lire les interviews où seront abordées le mixage du disque. J'aimerai comprendre ce qui prend autant de temps, à part le perfectionnisme. Mais comme Chan l'a écrit sur son site: "THIS NEW RECORD MEANS A LOT TO ME".
It's going to be legen...wait for it...dary!

Sinon, tu as jouée aux détectives pour retrouver son compte?

Les réseaux sociaux me font tourner en bourrique également, en particulier Twitter où je me suis perdue maintes fois.

Dans mon errance, alors que je croyais que tout était perdu, je suis tombée là-dessus:

https://i.servimg.com/u/f45/17/25/78/57/chan11.png

J'ai réfléchi...longtemps...Et j'ai trouvé! Awesome!

Very cool.

Cette photo me laisse songeur: et si finalement il s'agissait d'un album éponyme? Ça collerait avec "This New record means a lot to me" et l'absence d'un titre de travail sur la bande...


I've been wondering about this photo: could this finally be a self-titled album? No working title on the master tape, and Chan states that "This new record means a lot to me". Just a thought...

Ce que tu dis est loin d'être idiot.

Un album éponyme serait presque logique vu le temps/soin qu'elle prend pour le réaliser, sa volonté de jouer de tous les instruments. Peut-être, selon elle l'album qui lui ressemble le plus?

Sab79 wrote:Ce que tu dis est loin d'être idiot.

Ça me rassure!

Sab79 wrote:Un album éponyme serait presque logique vu le temps/soin qu'elle prend pour le réaliser, sa volonté de jouer de tous les instruments. Peut-être, selon elle l'album qui lui ressemble le plus?

La dimension "je joue de tous les instruments" renforce effectivement l'hypothèse.

Nicolaoua wrote:

Sab79 wrote:Ce que tu dis est loin d'être idiot.

Ça me rassure!

J'imaginais bien que tu n'attendais que moi pour te le confirmer!

So, the record should be out before september...



I don't think that a lot of records are usually released in july/august, so it could be may/june. Take your pick...

So i was wrong about the title: it won't be "Cat Power". Too bad: i really liked the idea!

She seems to really like that title since she mentioned it like 6 years ago and it hasnt changed.

Un premier aperçu proposé par Cokelike de ce à quoi l'album pourrait ressembler, au moins au niveau des titres présents:https://odetochan.forumgratuit.org/t65-sun-new-album-coming-9-11-12-concert-clips

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Cokelike created a topic about how the album could sound: https://odetochan.forumgratuit.org/t65-sun-new-album-coming-9-11-12-concert-clips

As you already know , the album is supposed to be released in september but we are still waiting some kind of official statement about that.
Anyway, Cat Power's official website has already changed and is showing right now an almost blank page, featuring some kind of rainbow.

I've checked how Matador communicated about The Greatest and there was a 15 weeks gap between the official statement about the release of the album and the release iself.
Same 15/14 weeks gap for Jukebox: i start to see a pattern here...
If SUN is still to be released on Sept 11th, it would be a 13 weeks gap.
Expect the Press statement to be released anytime now... or the record to be delayed!

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Comme vous le savez probablement déjà, le nouvel album de Cat Power est attendu pour début septembre mais nous attendons toujours une annonce officielle à ce propos.
Quoi qu'il en soit, le site officiel de Cat Power a déjà changé, présentant actuellement une page presque vide, agrémentée d'une sorte d'arc-en-ciel.

J'ai vérifié comment Matador Records avait communiqué sur la sortie des 2 derniers albums. Pour The Greatest, il y eut un délai de 15 semaines entre l'annonce officielle de l'album et sa sortie et entre 15 et 14 semaines pour Jukebox. On commence à voir un modus operandi...
Si SUN doit bien paraitre le 11 septembre, nous serions déjà à J-13 semaines.
Attendez-vous dès lors à une annonce imminente...ou à un retard de l'album!

Let's gamble! I bet that the new song will be released on the 21th of june, the first day of summer.

Have you noticed how "SUN" is written? It looks like a lightning strike (Harry Potter anyone? )! There is a strong contrast between the cold colors, the lightning like letters and the name "SUN". I don't want to over analyze it but i find this to be very interesting.

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Avez-vous remarqué la façon dont "SUN" est écrit? On dirait des éclairs stylisés. Il y a un contraste saisissant entre d'une part les couleurs froides, les lettres en forme d'éclairs qui évoquent la tempête et d'autre part le nom "SUN" qui évoque la chaleur et la quiétude. Je ne veux pas donner l'impression de faire de la surinterprétation mais ça me parait intéressant et peut-être un indice du contenu.

Nicolaoua wrote:
Have you noticed how "SUN" is written? It looks like a lightning strike (Harry Potter anyone? )

Pour Harry Potter, j'y ai pensé aussi, mais j'ai pas osé en parler! Le S m'a également fait penser au groupe KISS.

Pour le coup je serais effectivement très surpris.

Nicolaoua wrote:

Avez-vous remarqué la façon dont "SUN" est écrit? On dirait des éclairs stylisés. Il y a un contraste saisissant entre d'une part les couleurs froides, les lettre en forme d'éclairs qui évoquent la tempête et d'autre part le nom "SUN" qui évoque la chaleur et la quiétude. Je ne veux pas donner l'impression de faire de la surinterprétation mais ça me parait intéressant et peut-être un indice du contenu.

Intéressant, oui, le titre SUN est placé du côté gris alors que son visage est traversé par un arc-en-ciel.

Oui, là on tient quelque chose: la droite de l'affiche serait la tempête et la gauche, le havre.
Maintenant il faut voir comment ça va se goupiller sur la pochette qui n'a pas le même format élargi.

I was flicking through the Elizabeth Goodman biography last night and this photo caught my eye. Looks like the billboard art to me, and the photo on the left must be from around 1995. Nearly 20 years old!

Spot on!