Nova Cat Purring Sounds: StellarPurr (Name-Your-Price Digital)

From Goldmine It is said that the sound of a cat’s purr sits neatly within the exact same range that humans find most medically therapeutic… reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, even helping infections and broken bones to heal. That may or may not be so. But it is undeniable that, at least among cat lovers, a happy kitty is a comforting kitty… even when you’re listening to it on record. It’s fifty years since New Zealand composer Annea Lockwood released “Tiger Balm,” an at-the-time revolutionary piece of music in which music melded with moggy to form a ten minute symphony of gentle (if occasionally unexpected) solace. And, since then, a host of relaxation tapes and videos have emerged, all following Lockwood’s lead to greater or lesser extent. Now comes StellaPurr, a forty minute collaboration between Nova Cat (who is a cat) and electronic/ambient artist Black Tape For A Blue Girl (who isn’t), a follow-up to last year’s so-pleasing (if somewhat awkwardly titled) Relaxing Purring Cat for Sleep, Study, Healing Therapy (ASMR). No such claims, this time. Sleep, study, heal, hang from your toes from the lightshade, balance precariously atop a door, subtly nudge expensive vases over the edge of the table, you can do whatever you want as StellaaPurr plays through. In fact, as Spin Cycle has just discovered, you can even confuse your own cats as they listen to the opening, unaccompanied, “Interstellar Purr,” and wonder where is that sound coming from? And can I bite it, please? “Interstellar Purr” returns for track two, only this time spaced out around ten minutes of dark electronic atmospheres, themselves paced to complement their costar, and we close with “Stellar Purr,” a twenty-six minute symphony for contented kitty and darkly cinematic deep space drifting, through which Nova Cat might be the engines that take you where you’re going. Or might be whatever is waiting when you get there. Put it this way, though. There’s no mistaking whose paw was on the mixing desk as the music came together. Clue. It’s the eighteen year old American Shorthair. -Dave Thompson