Owl & the Pussycat: self-titled

Sometimes stillness and quiet can be more attention getting than noise and movement. The hush that falls over an audience just before a performance starts, the tranquility of being adrift in a small rowboat on a solitary lake, the peace of being alone after your party guests leave and your house is yours again. All of these can cause you to catch your breath and just revel in the moment, forgetting about whatever other worries you might have as long as that moment lasts. Add Owl & the Pussycat’s self-titled debut album to that list of quiet pleasures.

Owl & the Pussycat is a relatively new duo comprised of indiepop female icon Lois Maffeo (“Owl”) and Greg Moore (“Pussycat”) of the Moore Brothers. Lois Maffeo has one of the most impressive resumés in the world of indie. She hosted a radio show that helped inspire the riot grrrl community of Olympia, Washington. She’s a rock journalist who’s published reviews and interviews in publications ranging from the Boston Phoenix to tiny homemade ‘zines. She’s collaborated with most of the major players in the Pacific Northwest music scene, from Rebecca Gates to Heather Dunn to Calvin Johnson, and many outside that geographic confine, including Fugazi’s Brendan Canty. She even named one of her early bands Courtney Love, before Love was a household name (to the eternal confusion of many a college radio DJ). Californian Moore is less established, though the Moore Brothers 2001 album Colossal Small was released on Pavement boy Scott Kannberg’s Amazing Grease label. Owl & the Pussycat is Maffeo and Moore’s first release together, and it’s a truly auspicious debut.

Owl & the Pussycat is a quietly impressive album, full of gentle rhythms and sweetly melding harmonies, with Maffeo and Moore’s vocals complementing each other beautifully. Maffeo has been operating on the lo-fi principle of instrumentation and recording for over a decade now in her various solo and collaborative projects, so it’s not too surprising that this album’s tracks feature relatively spare musical arrangements. The musical accompaniment to Maffeo and Moore’s lyrics is comprised mainly of guitar, some bass, piano and flute, but no drums. For the most part, these songs are short, to-the-point, and very intimate, providing glimpses into love affairs largely on the decline.

The album is full of gems. The songs on which Maffeo takes lead vocals are truly striking, like the blues-inflected “Company” (which also features backing vocals from a male chorus group), her lush, romantic turn on “C’est Moi” or the bouncy slyness of “I Hate the Sun”. Her voice has always been unusually rich and mature for a genre dominated by wispy little girl voices, and the songs on this album showcase it wonderfully. In fact, I can’t think of a single Maffeo song on this album that I wouldn’t recommend wholeheartedly.

Moore’s rather feminine-sounding vocals prove an apt foil for Maffeo’s slightly deeper ones on duets like “Don’t Play Me”, “I Drink to You” and “Blinds”. The songs on which Moore leads aren’t quite as impressive, but that’s mainly in comparison to the near-perfection of what surrounds them. “Tiger” is slightly ruined by a silly metaphor and an overly dramatic vocal line in the chorus, but “Give Me the Morning” has wistfulness that’s truly lovely. The chorus lyrics, “Give me the morning / Let me pretend / You don’t want this illusion to end / Give me the morning”, are delivered in such a beautifully heartbreaking fashion that they almost make you want to smile instead of cry.

If Owl & the Pussycat is any indication, the collaboration between Lois Maffeo and Greg Moore could be the basis for many wonderful albums. Here’s hoping that they continue to follow up on this album’s promise in the future.