For a band whose first cassette was released in 1992, the 34-year gestation period for The Cat’s Miaow’s debut album, When You Smiled And Turned Away, seems a bit extreme. Yet things aren’t quite that simple. Melbourne’s Bart Cummings and Andrew Withycombe began recording on their own, using a drum machine. Once they began recording in a studio, Kerrie Bolton was recruited for vocals, while Cam Smith played drums. Over the next three years a number of cassette only albums were recorded, making it to the shores of the United Kingdom and beyond. Yet a proper album never appeared.
Smith’s departure to England in 1995 signalled a shift, The Cat’s Miaow became Hydroplane, and the music took on a more ambient and electronic atmosphere. Yet by 2001 the band had disappeared from view. Which makes the release of When You Smiled And Turned Away all the more extraordinary. Representing a return to the original aesthetic of relative minimalism and melancholia, their songs feature concise writing with a precision that has crafted an album of 14 songs in a mere 31 minutes.
Moments matter to The Cat’s Miaow. That much is evident right off the bat during the song ‘When You Smiled And Turned Away’. Amidst the guitar, bass and keyboard, Bolton’s vocals examine a relationship, asking a question that goes directly to the nature of relationships, “When you smiled and turned away/ Was your intention/ To start a game that we could play?” In that single moment the song cuts to the quick of matters of the heart. They are, of course, open to interpretation.
Jangle pop at its finest, while drumsticks counting off the beat, guitar and bass frame the beauty that comes from the heart in “If You’re Lost, You Can Follow Me Home.” With shared male and female vocals, what emerges is the kind of simple truth that makes The Cat’s Miaow so unique. “Were you abandoned/ Left cold and alone?/ And if you’re lost, you can follow me home.” Amidst the sheer simplicity exists the kind of humanity that makes all the difference, both in a relationship and in the world at large.
The effortlessness of these songs is almost shocking. ‘CBGB’s’ clocks in at under a minute. Yet unlike the Ramones, rather than a quick burst of energized angst, what emerges is an almost perfect moment in time. No two are exactly the same. The keyboard moments that dominate ‘Have You Done This Before?’ set an almost impossible standard for how to do so much so quickly. These songs that never outstay their welcome.
Throughout the album there is no wasted motion or emotion. Each song stands as a kernel of truth to behold. ‘Journey’s End’ is precise, yet never completely spelled out. As Bolton sings, “The time has come to say goodbye/ As the dust blows and ashes scattered/ The road is long, life has been here/ Forever, yet life is fleeting.” Magic and mystery walk hand in hand as the band finds ways to hold a candle to the substance that makes up life.
In the same vein as a band like Belle and Sebastian, The Cat’s Miaow finds a way to simplify their songs to get directly to the heart of things, stripping tunes back to their essential ingredients. When You Smiled And Turned Away is a master class in discovering the elemental truths of life. That it has taken over 30 years to come to fruition only serves to show that good things come to those who wait.