MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / CÉDRIC STEVENS
Abstract Expressionism For The Ears
(Opax - OPX037) 3xLP $38.00
Dreamy sound architecture, floating sculptures of abstract drones and cannibal noise, modal piano, ancestral strings and electronic futurism, and celestial music of the Spheres imbued with vocal exorcism textures. Over two hours of long-form spontaneously composed pieces recorded during Maurizio and Roberto Opalio’s intense February 2014 residency in Brussels collaborating with the Belgian electronic composer also known as Acid Kirk. Heavy-duty, color laminated jacket. Includes digital download card. Edition of 300. Listen to an album sampler here: https://soundcloud.com/elliptical-noise/my-cat-is-an-alien-cedric-stevens-abstract-expressionism-for-the-ears-album-sampler
Alien Blood
(Opax - OPX030) LP $30.00
One of the most impressive and innovative MCIAA recordings to date, the original soundtrack from Roberto Opalio’s 2005-2008 film of the same name, currently getting screened as part of the Sonic Youth Etc.: Sensational Fix museum exhibition, has so far been presented at LIFE (France), and is scheduled around the globe for the next couple of years. The improvised score by My Cat Is An Alien follows the minimal and surrealistic beginning of the film with sparse echoes of eerie sounds, growing in dark timbres and pathos. Maurizio Opalio’s heavily effected "blood percussions" compress the air, while Roberto's wordless vocals, along with space toys, alientronics and mini-keyboard, walk the razor's edge of another dimension. The finale comes as one of the most epic crescendos ever performed by the Italian duo. Limited to 220 copies in handmade textured cardboard folders with full-color paste-on still images from the film.
Alienology - Selected Works 1998-2008
(Elliptical Noise - ALPHAOMEGA6555-64) 10xCD $79.00 (Out-of-stock)
Rare and out-of-print material from space brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio available for the first time in digital format, including the previously unreleased “Where The Lines Go To Sleep” from 2004. Starting with Landscapes Of An Electric City, MCIAA pondered Polaroids they had taken of their hometown Torino and decided a two-guitar improv would best represent the bare essence / sublimation of the metropolitan soul the way it felt inside them. Throughout the decade that followed, the brothers entrusted their “pictures of infinity” to a variety of labels that released their material in limited vinyl-only editions. Among other fundamental works, Alienology contains their self-described Great Void Trilogy, originally released on three separate LPs by Eclipse Records in the middle of the last decade. The latest work presented in the set, Alien Blood (Opax 2008) is the duo’s original soundtrack to the homonymic film by Roberto Opalio, shown at European museums as part of the Sonic Youth etc: Sensational Fix exhibition. Includes extensive liner notes and special art cards. Landscapes Of An Electric City (Ecstatic Peace 1999); The Rest Is Silence (Eclipse 2003); When The Windmill’s Whirl Dies (Eclipse 2004); There’s A Flame___Sometimes (Rococo 2005); Into The White Vortex (Opax 2007); Where The Lines Go To Sleep (previously unreleased); Greetings From The Great Void (Eclipse 2006); The Secret Of The Dancing Snow (Ikuisuus 2006); For The Tears Of The Land, Prayers From The Outer Space (Important 2008); Alien Blood (Opax 2008).
Black Shadows from Jupiter, Vol. I & II
(Elliptical Noise - ALPHAOMEGA6547-48) 2xCDR $16.00 (Out-of-stock)
Volume I was issued in 2005 by the Opalio brothers' Opax Records imprint in “Monalien Fidelity,” a reference / tribute to ESP's monaural sound recordings. Available in stereo for the first time, Volume I’s two long tracks are the very first music recorded by MCIAA after they moved to the new recording space located in the Western Alps, and contain Roberto Opalio's first experiments in wordless vocals. Five years later, in October 2009, they recorded Volume II, almost one hour of new material representing a unique journey in the darkest secrets of the S-System. Gatefold cardboard jacket with tape binding and paste-on artwork, with insert. Professionally duplicated in Germany.
KEIJI HAINO / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
Cosmic Debris Vol. 3
(Opax - OPX10) split LP $125.00
Third installment in the Cosmic Debris split-LP series sees the two space brothers from Torino, Italy, alongside Japan’s ichiban cult musician and dark shaman. Both side-long tracks, recorded live in the performers’ respective hometowns, detonate cosmic skullbombs: Haino’s “Whither goes it? / That which can’st not but be described / As my prayer/ Nowhere held in common / Lunatic, unknowable...” should tell you everything you need to know about it just by the title, while MCIAA’s “Everything Crashes Like Cosmic Debris” kicks the ass that cannot be kicked. Each record comes with an original acrylic painting by Roberto Opalio on 30x30cm proper canvas, with a unique Polaroid instant film installed on each piece, representing 100 different perspectives of a same subject related to MCIAA’s own cosmic imaginary. Extraordinarily limited, as usual.
LOREN CONNERS & HIS HAUNTED HOUSE BAND / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
Cosmic Debris Vol. 5
(Opax - OPX012) split LP $125.00
On the fifth and final volume in the Cosmic Debris series the space duo shares the vinyl with legendary avant-blues guitarist, whose tracks "Improv" and "Thomas Paine" document his now-defunct project HAUNTED HOUSE (featuring his wife Suzanne Langille, Andrew Burnes, and Neel Murgai). MCIAA's "Everything Tears Like Cosmic Debris" seals the concept behind this series of "art manufacts" and collaborations. In the silence of The Great Void, sparse melancholic guitar chords and eerie vocalizations build up an astral chant in celebration of the end of an old age and the beginning of a new one. Packaged with an original acrylic painting by Roberto Opalio on 30x30cm canvas, with a unique Polaroid instant film installed on each piece, representing one of a hundred different perspectives of a same subject related to My Cat Is An Alien's own cosmic imaginary. Limited edition of 100 copies.
Cosmological Eye Trilogy
(Last Visible Dog) Used 3xCD $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
Returning to the ancient spirit of Japanese national poetry, Ramona Ponzini (Praxinoscope, Z’ev, Black Magic Disco) and Roberto & Maurizio Opalio create fragile and unusual experiments somewhere between folk, psychedelia and drone. Ponzini sings excerpts from the poetry of Takamura Kotaro and plays furin and Japanese wind chimes (both metal and wooden). With Maurizio on acoustic guitar, and Roberto on mini keyboard, bodhran, alientronics, and wordless vocalizations, the trio’s luscious and mysterious music is strange, distant and delicate. Includes alternate mixes of “Mars Appears” and “The Mountain” (Blackest Rainbow 2011); the complete “Transparent Winter” session; thirty-three minutes of previously unreleased material and a bonus ghost track.
Different Shades Of Blue
(A Silent Place) Used LP $7.00
Space-ambient soundscapes with minimal textures from the heart of the cosmos. 2006 reissue, a re-edited and remastered version of the original U-Sound Archive CDR. Includes insert and large postcard.
MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / JOËLLE VINCIARELLI
> Eternal Beyond >
(Opax - OPX038) 2xLP $63.00 (Out-of-stock)
(Opax - OPX038) LP $21.00 (Out-of-stock)
This collaborative project by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio and French underground queen Joëlle Vinciarelli (of Talweg and La Morte Young) began in Spring 2015 when the outsider instantaneous composers traced a magic triangle on a map between their hometown Torino, their current Alien Zone secret base in Western Alps, and the mysterious area over Nice’s hills known as Le Village Nègre. The duo’s otherwordly sounds and Roberto’s eerie wordless vocals melted with Vinciarelli’s unique, underwordly voice. An antique upright piano soundboard, home-made wooden string instruments, modified electronic devices, an old pendulum clock mechanism, bells and an old trumpet were played during the four-day recording session. The result purposely bypasses the present and builds a bridge between the archaic and the future. Marbled color vinyl. Liner notes by Philippe Robert. Includes free download card. Edition of 300.
2xLP art edition includes a second hand-painted platter by Roberto Opalio. Edition of 30
MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / PRAXINOSCOPE
For the Tears of the Land Prayers from the Outer Space
(Elliptical Noise) 2xCD $15.00 (Out-of-stock)
In which the Brothers Opalio successfully decode the aesthetic hall of mirrors and conclude that alien art and archaic art are the same thing. The first disc of this ambitious concept album is acoustic blues dedicated to the pioneers of American primitive music (especially Charley Patton), to whom there can no doubt about a psychic connection. On the second disc, Praxinoscope delivers a piece of total cosmic blast... and of archaic transcendence. Get on board or get used to oblivion. Both volumes were previously released as individual discs. This reissue comes in a gatefold cardboard jacket with clothbound spine and paste-on artwork. Includes liner notes, full introduction, and cover artwork by Roberto Opalio. With free download card.
For the Tears of the Land Prayers from the Outer Space - Vol.1
(Elliptical Noise - ALPHAOMEGA6543) CDR $12.00 (Out-of-stock)
The first of an ambitious two-part series by the cosmic brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, kicking off with an acoustic blues performed by Roberto, dedicated to the pioneers of the American primitive music and in particular to the spirit of Charley Patton. "It’s magical, mysterious and dreamy," says Indieworkshop, "19 million light years worth of dreams." Cardboard jacket with past-on artwork. Professionally duplicated in Germany.
Fragments Suspended In Time
(Opax - OPX32A) LP + CDr + DVDr $27.00 (Out-of-stock)
(Opax - OPX32A) LP + CDr + DVDr Box $120.00 (Out-of-stock)
Recorded after the brothers Opalio spent a long period of self-imposed isolation in the Western Alps, far from everything but their own spirits. Side A ( the “alba” or “sunrise” side) overwhelms immediately with delicate grace, melodic texture, and Roberto's intimate, wordless vocalizations. Side B ( the “tramonto” or “sunset” side) increases the sweet, anti-gravitational sweet mood. One-time pressing of 250 copies on multicolor vinyl. Handmade, heavy cardboard jacket with paste-on silver artwork and 12-inch insert. A professionally duplicated CDr is included as a digital version of the album. The region-free DVDr (limited to 100 copies) contains a film by Roberto Opalio, inspired by the alba side.
The art box edition adds to the regular edition the following: original art work by Roberto Opalio on six-page hand-bound booklet, mounted on 12" panel, numbered and signed; hand-lettered LP labels; hand-crafted box, numbered, hand-stamped and signed. Edition of 20.
THURSTON MOORE / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
From the Earth to the Spheres Vol. 1
(Opax - OPX001) LP $75.00
Moore’s 21-minute piano improv “American Coffin” recalls textures on Dave Burrell’s Echo LP and some of Stockhausen’s wilder moments. Feedback splinters add a layer of fragmentation, as do howling guitar musical collage inserts, permeated by a cloud of dust and debris. My Cat Is An Alien’s “Brilliance In The Outer Space,” influenced by early American minimalism, flows through inner and outer dimensions. As with every other volume in the series, this is a limited edition of 100 copies, packaged in an original acrylic painting by Roberto Opalio on a 31x31cm wooden support, individually signed by the artist.
From the Earth to the Spheres Vol. 2
(Opax - OPX002) LP $75.00
Thuja mine minimalism and sound textures within elaborate, real-time compositions that examine the nature of sound. Audio-visual artist Loren Chasse (Coelacanth) and Glenn Donaldson (Mirza, Sky Green Leopards, Birdtree and Ivytree) are joined on one of the their more adventurous and hypnotic works, “The Magma Is The Brother Of The Stone” by Rob Reger and collaborator Greg Bianchini. My Cat Is An Alien scan obscure and scattered drones as the world collapses into silence. The Italian duo’s high-frequency ectoplasm drifts away from the raw howl of the past toward a blues-y intimacy. Edition of 100, with Roberto Opalio’s painted wood covers.
GLANDS OF EXTERNAL SECRETION / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
From the Earth to the Spheres Vol. 5
(Very Friendly - VF023) split CD $8.00
Fierce blonde Barbara Manning and Bananafish founder Seymour Glass are joined by Nels Cline on lap steel for “Icebox,” a slow ascent from isolation through frozen tape manipulation, icy drones, and subtle infernal groans from the obscure side of the moon. The unearthly fragmented vocals of the Italian Opalio brothers create the heavy, emotional textures of the interstellar “After the Meteor Shower,” with howling guitars and electronics, the distant echo of a drum, and a whispered chant emerging from the concrete surface of the planet.
CHRISTIAN MARCLAY / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
From the Earth to the Spheres Vol. 7
(Opax - OPX007) split LP $75.00
The seventh volume in the From the Earth To the Spheres split vinyl LP series pairs the Opalio brothers with Christian Marclay (turntable, electronics) and Okkyung Lee (cello), who recorded their side -- where else? -- at Tonic in NYC, 2003. MCIAA’s side is also a live recording (from Italy in 2002). As with every other volume in the series, this is a limited edition of 100 copies, packaged in an original acrylic painting by Roberto Opalio on a 31x31cm wooden support, individually signed by the artist.
BIRDS BUILD NESTS UNDERGROUND / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
Gramofonu = Voice of The Universe
(Opax - OPX30A) LP $23.00 (Out-of-stock)
The first meeting of Prague-based turntable-and-8mm band and Italian psychedelic troubadours. Two different approaches yield a sound from the unknown realms of the outer space and the somehow-well-known world of old cracking records. BBNU provided MCIAA with some live improvisations, which were subsequently laced with sounds of guitars, space toys and ray guns, wordless singing and alientronics. Never has music of the spheres crackled so nicely. An improvised speech by a Czech avant garde poet Vítezslav Nezval kicks this off. Edition of 300
Greetings From The Great Void
(Eclipse) Used 2xLP $12.00
“While they keep their feet on earth by flirting with blues, rock and roots music, Maurizio and Roberto Opalio take every opportunity to hurl themselves and their listeners as far as possible into the galaxy. The universe of My Cat is an Alien is therefore one of intergalactic soundscapes where acoustic percussion and electronic sounds are perfectly integrated. Clear melodies, tight grooves. The tracks float in a vacuum, through the various rings of cosmic debris of an imaginary planet. Sometimes they are formed by the fine dust of a chirp-like sound, like a malfunctioning game console or by a haze of long tones that refuse to become a melody, while at other times deflected guitar sounds or various percussion.” Sealed
Il Segno
(Starlight Furniture Company) CD $15.00
(Starlight Furniture Company) LP $15.00
Beginning with a gloomy text entitled “The Sign” written by guitarist / lyricist Roberto Opalio, My Cat Is An Alien entered The Space Room and recorded this dark and concrete improvisation, a single piece of howling and caustic ruination. Maurizio Opalio comes out of the fog with desolate acoustic guitar scratches, Roberto’s electric space guitar scribbles as he spits out his words of urban alienation, and Viggiu Vortex joins the brothers on percussion. Piano toy and toy keyboard were added later to enhance the surreal lyrics inspired by ghosts, a sense of psychic, cultural and social isolation in their hometown Torino, Italy, and the infinite lightness and beauty between the cement and the sky. CD contains two non-LP tracks.
Listen Before Black Falls
(Root Strata - RS19) LP $15.00
A third eye laser beam shot from the catacombs of Torino, Italy. An acoustic guitar lullaby leads down a long, dark tunnel of alpha wave feedback. Jacket is silk-screened (front) and hand-lettered (back). Numbered 226 in an edition of 300.
MICHAEL MORLEY / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / RAMONA PONZINI / LEE RANALDO
Live @ Sensational Fix
(Starlight Furniture Company - *25) LP $15.00
As part of the 2008 exhibition Sensational Fix, with a focus on Sonic Youth’s multi-disciplinary activities since 1981, My Cat Is An Alien performed live with long-time collaborator Ramona Ponzini, Michael Morley of Dead C, and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth. Side B features solo pieces by each of the five members of this extemporaneous ensemble. Stills from the live footage shot by curator Roland Groenenboom appear on the color insert.
Living On The Invisible Line
(Divorce) Used LP $12.00
Emotive and soulful improvised experimentalism recorded in a remote region of the Western Alps that navigates especially tranquil territory. Blissed-out pastoral mirages, dappled just slightly with glimmers of an outer darkness. Cut corner.
My Cat Is An Alien and the Analog Statement
(Opax) 5xLP $79.00 (Out-of-stock)
Five pearls from 2005 to 2010 re-issued and collected: On Air at Sound Projecting (Opax 2006), a live improvised performance from Ed Pinsent's Resonance 104.4 radio show in London; Epocsonixarp, the second album by Praxinoscope (the duo formed by Roberto Opalio and Ramona Ponzini); Alien Blood (Opax 2008), the original soundtrack to Roberto Opalio's film; Fragments Suspended In Time (Opax 2010), an anti-gravitational sweet mood recording captured in the Western Alps of Italy; and Gramofonu = Voice of the Universe (Opax 2010), a collaborative work with Prague duo Birds Build Nests Underground. All records repressed in the original form with original label artworks. Four black-vinyl platters and and one multi-color. Tri-fold jacket, paste-on silver artwork. Includes download coupon. Numbered edition of 100.
On Air At Sound Projecting
(Opax) Used LP $25.00
The entire improvised live performance at Ed Pinsent’s Sound Projecting radio show, broadcasted by London’s Resonance 104.4 FM, December 2004.None of the usual cosmic guitars, but rather space toys, toy-microphones, pocket theremin, mini-Casio. Pinsent himself guests on turntables. Photocopy art cloth taped to jacket, numbered edition 60/158.
Photoelectric Season
(Elliptical Noise - ALPHAOMEGA6549-50) 2xCDR $16.00 (Out-of-stock)
During six months of physical and psychic isolation while on mystic retreat in a remote region of the Western Alps, the Opalio Brothers listened to Giacinto Scelsi, Erik Satie and Maki Asakawa and read Strindberg and Lautréamont. Created with electric and acoustic guitars, vocals, mini-keyboard, alientronix, and ancient zither, Photoelectric Season is a milestone in MCIAA's innovative and mysterious discography: their new “cosmic tones for mental therapy.” Gatefold cardboard jacket with tape binding and paste-on artwork, with insert. Professionally duplicated in Germany.
Psycho-System
(Elliptical Noise) 6xCD $49.00 (Out-of-stock)
My Cat Is An Alien’s most extreme work to date is quite an advanced expression of their current creative method of composition. Prolonged high-volume exposure to the brothers’ self-made strings and electronic instrumentation, they warn, can cause a psychotic break with reality, hallucinations, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, catatonia. Full-color artwork, liner notes and credits, two art cards, download coupon. Watch the official trailer here: http://youtu.be/CL1ZVhHzXuE
RE-SI-STEN-ZA!
(Opax - OPX039) 2xLP $73.00 (Out-of-stock)
(Opax - OPX039) LP $23.00 (Out-of-stock)
This foretaste of My Cat Is An Alien’s 20th anniversary in winter 2017 well represents the summa of the duo’s musical lifespan, from their early space-toys era to their current home-made electronics and string instruments output. On the title track, the Opalio brothers are “at the height of their wiring and warping powers,” according to Mark Barton of The Sunday Experience, who goes on the proclaim the track “an absolute wig-flipped tour de force that [morphs] through elements of noise, musique concrète, stoner earthbeat and cosmic spiritualism…. [This] immense and often brutal, cranium-collapsing palette of psychotropic goo … shapeshifts with such out-there aplomb that you … fear your mind might fry.” Meanwhile, the liner notes call attention to the cornerstone of the instantaneous composition “Let Their Voices Speak Through The Wind”: the voice “transcending itself into a flux of infinite voices dislocated throughout the atemporal dimension of the Spheres, which float in the ether and permeate our physical bodies like ‘cosmic debris’ lulled by the wind. Voices of ghosts … represent a blinding light within the deepest darkness of this [increasingly] sad and lost planet, and … leave a trace of beauty and existential meaning in our lives.” Metallic gold vinyl. Tri-fold sleeve, textured fine-art cardboard. With antique map replica poster and three inserts on parchment paper. Includes free download card. Edition of 300.
2xLP art edition includes a second hand-painted platter by Roberto Opalio. Edition of 50
The Dance Of Oneirism
(Backwards - BW19) 2xLP $37.00 (Out-of-stock)
From the liner notes: “Self-made double-bodied string instrument, handmade pocket harp, pedal effects, wordless vocalizations, modified analog drum machine, mini-keyboard, alientronics…. [N]othing is straightforward; everything is invented, shrunken, self-built, inchoate: alien-ated. The session was recorded – instantly composed – in MCIAA’s “Alien Zone” situated in the Western Alps, and it sounds it…. The rhythms have a contrary cold, organic quality to them, the feel of the pulse as the breath is held…. The transmissions are fuzzy … and at points it makes for a music of almost terrifying quiet. It is minimal, sure, but MCIAA are not so much interested in repetition as in eternal expansion. The Dance Of Oneirism is MCIAA’s greatest long-form work.” Includes a photographic art book by Roberto Opalio. Silkscreened image by the artist on Side D.
NELS CLINE / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
The Ocean Above Your Heads
(Starlight Furniture Company - *26) LP $15.00
This first-time collaboration by Italy’s premier transcenders of time and space and guitarist extraordinaire from Wilco, Scarnella, Nels Cline Singers, and L. Stinkbug throbs like an Argento soundtrack for an astral perv lair, recalling vintage cassette gorp from the golden age of Industrial, when field recordings of howling dogs were repurposed as documents of institutional degradation and mind control. The Opalio brothers improvise an instant composition with the first-time playback of Cline's prerecorded space noise, bold cosmic disruptions, and nattering squibs from decommissioned satellites. No overdubs, no second takes, no leftovers. Dusted with loops from a lunar cathedral where palsied zombies dragging pots and pans skid across the soap-slathered narthex, The Ocean Above Your Heads splays the hemispheres better than Subotnik goin’ off his meds.
There’s A Flame _____ Sometimes
(Rococo) Used LP $7.00
Two side-long studies on texture and sound sculpting that evoke a fragile blurred galactic amoeba. Numbered edition 264/500
The Rest Is Silence
(Eclipse) Used 2xLP $12.00
“The third album from Italy’s fraternal duo is a cosmic blend of alien folky blues, avant-space sounds, and extraterrestrial melancholy performed with electric and acoustic guitars, pedal effects, and weird space toys.” Sealed
JEAN-MARC MONTERA / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN
Union Of The Supreme Light
(Starlight Furniture Company - *28) LP $20.00
Joining Maurizio and Roberto Opalio on their fourth album for Starlight Furniture Co., legendary French-Corsican guitarist and co-founder of Groupe de Recherche et d’Improvisation Musicales brings his noisy lyricism to three long tracks of oddly sensual and animalistic space howl. As their many past collaborations attest, My Cat Is An Alien’s self-sustaining biosphere is an environment where the surreal dreamscapes of mavericks and eccentrics can flourish. Jean-Marc Montera’s home-made guitar table, various objects, and electronics forge metallic ribbons that twitch between the impossibly distant clangs of gigantic spores, while Maurizio (on home-made double-bodied string instrument and pedal effects) and Roberto (on alientronics, pedal effects, and modified electronic devices) set worms adrift in a zero-gravity aviary stocked with narcotized satsuma fowl. Roberto adds more disorientation to the trio’s fog-blurred horizon lines with wordless vocalizations that could pass for billowing laments hooted by mutant sea mammals with enoki mushrooms growing on their larynxes. Includes download card. Edition of 350.
What Space Is Made For
(Elliptical Noise - ALPHAOMEGA6552-54) 3xCDR $33.00 (Out-of-stock)
The first step in the new parallel universe the brothers Opalio call "multi-layered instantaneous composition." Celebrated as sound sculptors, trance-state minimalists, impressionistic noisicians, hallucinators of dislocated inputs and outputs, haunting ambient mantra-chanters, cathartic tribalists, and visionary voyagers through three millennia of cosmic music, MCIAA recorded What Space Is Made For in their secret base on the Western Alps, and unlike previous works, it's mostly made of short pieces and songs, performed on electric and acoustic guitars, space toys, percussion, and home-made, modified, and assembled / disassembled primitive electronic equipment. An alternate edit of "The Antigravitational Sense Of Nothingness" is featured on the Wire Tapper 25 CD (April 2011). Booklet includes liner notes and text by Roberto Opalio. With six full-color art cards. Discs look like tiny replicas of vinyl platters, right down to the color.