Moon Pix is the fourth album by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriter

Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...

 Cat Power

Cat Power

Charlyn Marie Marshall , also known as Chan Marshall or by her stage name Cat Power, is an American singer/songwriter and occasional actress and model. Cat Power was originally the name of Marshall's first band, but has come to refer to her musical projects with various backing bands...

 (a.k.a. Chan Marshall). It was released in September 1998 on Matador Records

Matador Records

Matador Records is an independent record label, with a roster of indie rock artists and bands.-History:Matador was started by Chris Lombardi in 1989 in his New York City apartment. The following year, Lombardi was joined by former Homestead Records manager Gerard Cosloy, and the two of them have...

.

The album features Mick Turner

Mick Turner

Mick Turner is an Australian musician and painter best known as the guitarist for Dirty Three.Prior to his work with Dirty Three, Turner was a member of several Melbourne-based rock bands: Sick Things , The Moodists , Fungus Brains , and Venom P...

 and Jim White

Jim White (drummer)

Jim White is an Australian drummer . He is the drummer for the Dirty Three, a band formed in Melbourne, but he has also played with a number of other groups, including:*Tren Brothers, consisting of Jim White and Mick Turner, guitarist of the Dirty Three....

, of the Australian instrumental

Instrumental

An instrumental is a musical composition or recording without lyrics or singing, although it might include some non-articulate vocal input; the music is primarily or exclusively produced by musical instruments....

 band Dirty Three

Dirty Three

Dirty Three are an instrumental trio consisting of Warren Ellis , Mick Turner and Jim White , originating from Melbourne, Australia. Since the Dirty Three formed in 1992, they have spent a lot of time overseas...

, on guitar and drums, respectively.

Music

According to Cat Power: A Good Woman by Elizabeth Goodman, several songs on the album - "No Sense," "Say," "Metal Heart," "You May Know Him" and "Cross Bones Style

Cross Bones Style

"Cross Bones Style" is a song by the American singer/songwriter Cat Power . It is the tenth song on her 1998 album, Moon Pix.-Background:...

" - were written "in one deranged night," following a hallucinatory

Hallucination

A hallucination, in the broadest sense of the word, is a perception in the absence of a stimulus. In a stricter sense, hallucinations are defined as perceptions in a conscious and awake state in the absence of external stimuli which have qualities of real perception, in that they are vivid,...

 nightmare

Nightmare

A nightmare is an unpleasant dream that can cause a strong negative emotional response from the mind, typically fear or horror, but also despair, anxiety and great sadness. The dream may contain situations of danger, discomfort, psychological or physical terror...

 Marshall had in the fall of 1997, while alone in the South Carolina

South Carolina

South Carolina is a state in the Deep South of the United States that borders Georgia to the south, North Carolina to the north, and the Atlantic Ocean to the east. Originally part of the Province of Carolina, the Province of South Carolina was one of the 13 colonies that declared independence...

 farmhouse she shared with then-boyfriend, Bill Callahan. "I got woken up by someone in the field behind my house in South Carolina," she explained, "The earth started shaking, and dark spirits were smashing up against every window of my house. I woke up and I had my kitten next to me...and I started praying to God to help me...So I just ran and got my guitar because I was trying to distract myself. I had to turn on the lights and sing to God. I got a tape recorder

Tape recorder

An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...

 and recorded the next sixty minutes. And I played these long changes, into six different songs. That's where I got the record."

Recording

Moon Pix was recorded at Sing Sing Studios in Melbourne

Melbourne

Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

 by house engineer Matt Voigt. In a 2006 interview with Mess+Noise, Voigt revealed that he had not heard of Marshall, and refused to start work on New Year's Day

New Year's Day

New Year's Day is observed on January 1, the first day of the year on the modern Gregorian calendar as well as the Julian calendar used in ancient Rome...

, as requested by the studio. Work on the album started the following day, with Marshall arriving with her guitar and asking Voigt how he wanted to set up for recording. She sang and played guitar at the same time, with a small guitar amplifier

Guitar amplifier

A guitar amplifier is an electronic amplifier designed to make the signal of an electric or acoustic guitar louder so that it will produce sound through a loudspeaker...

 in one room, and Marshall singing into a microphone

Microphone

A microphone is an acoustic-to-electric transducer or sensor that converts sound into an electrical signal. In 1877, Emile Berliner invented the first microphone used as a telephone voice transmitter...

 in another room.

The album's opener, "American Flag," features a slowed-down reversed drum sample from the 1986 Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys

Beastie Boys are an American hip hop trio from New York City. The group consists of Mike D who plays the drums, MCA who plays the bass, and Ad-Rock who plays the guitar....

 song, "Paul Revere

Paul Revere (song)

"Paul Revere" is a song by American hip hop group Beastie Boys, released as the third single from their debut album Licensed to Ill. It was written by Adam Horovitz, Joseph Simmons, Darryl McDaniels, and Rick Rubin. It was produced by Rick Rubin and the Beastie Boys...

." According to Voigt, Marshall appeared with a copy of the song on album in her bag, and requested a "backwards drum beat," which Marshall then recorded on top of. The sample is uncredited on Moon Pix.

Voigt recalls that Marshall was "a lovely lady. Very emotional. We would do takes and she'd just start crying in the middle of a take. And she'd say 'Stop, stop, I'm sorry, I'm sorry' and I'm like "'It sounded great!'"

According to Voigt, the Dirty Three members joined the studio most likely on the second day. White played drums over vocals and guitar already recorded by Marshall, and all three musicians recorded two songs live with bassist

Bassist

A bass player, or bassist is a musician who plays a bass instrument such as a double bass, bass guitar, keyboard bass or a low brass instrument such as a tuba or sousaphone. Different musical genres tend to be associated with one or more of these instruments...

 Andrew Entsch on double bass

Double bass

The double bass, also called the string bass, upright bass, standup bass or contrabass, is the largest and lowest-pitched bowed string instrument in the modern symphony orchestra, with strings usually tuned to E1, A1, D2 and G2...

.

Reception

Moon Pix has been called Cat Power's "magnum opus

Magnum opus

Magnum opus , from the Latin meaning "great work", refers to the largest, and perhaps the best, greatest, most popular, or most renowned achievement of a writer, artist, or composer.-Related terms:Sometimes the term magnum opus is used to refer to simply "a great work" rather than "the...

" and "a true masterpiece of emotional shading and compositional clarity." Critics cited it as evidence of Marshall's maturation as a songwriter, with Heather Phares of Allmusic writing that "Moon Pix continues Chan Marshall's transformation from an indie rock

Indie rock

Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...

 Cassandra

Cassandra

In Greek mythology, Cassandra was the daughter of King Priam and Queen Hecuba of Troy. Her beauty caused Apollo to grant her the gift of prophecy...

 into a reflective, accomplished singer/songwriter." Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield

Rob Sheffield is an American music journalist and author. He is currently a contributing editor at Rolling Stone, writing music reviews and essays on pop culture. Prior to that, he was a contributing editor at Blender before the print version of the magazine folded in 2009, and at Spin...

 of Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

called it "even stronger" than her previous album, What Would the Community Think

What Would the Community Think

What Would the Community Think is the third album by American singer-songwriter Chan Marshall, also known as Cat Power. It was released in 1996 on Matador Records, and was produced by Sonic Youth drummer Steve Shelley. The album has been noted for its array of musical styles, ranging from...

(1996), and wrote that "it still holds up as one of the Nineties great singer/songwriter triumphs."

The album is referenced in Jeffrey Brown's

Jeffrey Brown

Jeffrey Brown is a comic book writer and artist born in Grand Rapids, Michigan.-Biography:After growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a 25-year-old Jeffrey Brown moved to Chicago in 2000 to pursue an MFA at the School of the Art Institute. By the time he finished his studies, he had abandoned...

 2005 graphic novel

Graphic novel

A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

, "Aeiou: An Easy Intimacy," as part of the 'Soundtrack Side A'.

The album's cover was reenacted by the Shins

The Shins

The Shins are an American indie rock band comprising singer, songwriter, and guitarist James Mercer, guitarist/bassist Dave Hernandez, Eric Johnson of Fruit Bats, drummer Joe Plummer and bassist Ron Lewis. Their sound draws on several musical genres, including pop, alternative rock, indie rock,...

 on their 2001 music video for "New Slang

New Slang

"New Slang" is a song by The Shins. It was released as a 7" single in 2001, and subsequently appeared on their album Oh, Inverted World. It achieved mainstream popularity after its inclusion in the soundtrack of the film Garden State and its appearance in a McDonald's television commercial...

," along with album covers by Hüsker Dü

Hüsker Dü

Hüsker Dü was an American rock band formed in Saint Paul, Minnesota in 1979. The band's continual members were guitarist Bob Mould, bassist Greg Norton, and drummer Grant Hart....

, the Replacements, the Minutemen

Minutemen (band)

Minutemen were an American hardcore punk band formed in San Pedro, California in 1980. Composed of guitarist D. Boon, bassist Mike Watt and drummer George Hurley, Minutemen recorded four albums and eight EPs before Boon's death in an automobile accident in December 1985...

, Squirrel Bait

Squirrel Bait

Squirrel Bait was an American punk band from Louisville, Kentucky. They were in existence from 1983 to 1988. Squirrel Bait's dense, moody, melodic hardcore sound, featuring pronounced tempo shifts, foreshadowed the grunge sound of the late 1980s as well as math rock...

, Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth

Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...

 and Slint

Slint

Slint was an American rock band consisting of Brian McMahan , David Pajo , Britt Walford , Todd Brashear and Ethan Buckler...

.

Track listing

1. "American Flag" – 3:30
2. "He Turns Down" – 5:39
3. "No Sense" – 4:50
4. "Say" – 3:24
5. "Metal Heart" – 4:02
6. "Back of Your Head" – 3:43
7. "Moonshiner
   The Moonshiner
   The Moonshiner is a folk song with disputed origins. It is believed that the song originated in America, then later was made famous in Ireland. Others believe that it was the other way around. The Clancy Brothers stated on their recording that the song is of Irish origin, but again, this is...
   
   " (traditional) – 4:50
8. "You May Know Him" – 2:46
9. "Colors and the Kids" – 6:35
10. "Cross Bones Style
    Cross Bones Style
    "Cross Bones Style" is a song by the American singer/songwriter Cat Power . It is the tenth song on her 1998 album, Moon Pix.-Background:...
    
    " – 4:32
11. "Peking Saint" – 2:28

Personnel

• Chan Marshall - guitar, vocals, piano
• Mick Turner - guitar, engineer
• Mark Ohe - imperialized
• Frank Longo - imperialized
• Belinda Woods - flute
• Matt Voigt - engineer
• Jim White - drums
• Andrew Entsch - bass
• Roe Ethridge - photography