The Cat Empire - Two Shoes

My brother just got back from living in Canberra, Australia for six months. There are many things he liked about being Down Under but he couldn’t stop raving about The Cat Empire. “They’re just so fun. They love making good ol’ party music.” Right you are, dear brother. “The Car Song” is a zippy little tune. “Sol y Sombra” starts off with simple piano before blossoming into the kind of tune you’d dance to with your wife while on vacation in Honduras somewhere, perhaps at a street plaza café where stars are twinkling above and, far off in the hills, you hear cows lowing. Two Shoes, recorded in Cuba at the Egrem Studio (the studio used by the Buena Vista Social Club), is a wonderfully warm amalgam of musical stylings--funk, jazz, ska--and their unbridled enthusiasm for their tunes (whether you like that type of music or not) will make you tap your fingers along the steering wheel as you listen to it, driving to your brother’s house for a charged game of Pictionary. [www.thecatempire.com]