Category: Cats On Fire

Last month, to coincide with the staging of the European Football Championships, the always-excellent No Badger Required blog celebrated with a rundown of the best singers and bands from European countries outside of the UK.  

It was a very democratic process, with everyone who has volunteered over the years to be a ‘Musical Jury Member’ being asked to nominate their favourites. There was no limit put on the number of suggestions that could be made and from there, the 50 singers/bands who received the most nominations would be put on a long-list from which everyone would then be asked to select their Top 20 on a sliding scale, with the winner, naturally enough being the one who picked up most votes.

Democracy in this instance was a shit way to do things, as Cats on Fire didn’t make the longlist.  I was probably the only Musical Jury Member to actually nominate them.  Their absence really stung, and I sort of did a bit of protest vote by not awarding the maximum 20pts to anyone on the longlist.

Not that it can affect the outcome (everything was revealed last month and Björk was crowned the winner, narrowly holding off Kraftwerk), but I’ve decided to sort of continue my protests by having a second ICA devoted to Finland‘s Europe’s finest indie-pop band, just two years after Volume 1. 

None of the 12 tracks included on Volume 1 are included in this offering, which says a great deal about the quality of music the band released in the relatively short time it was active (2002 – 2012).

The back catalogue consists of three studio albums along with a compilation which pulls together tracks had been released on three incredibly difficult to obtain EPs from the band’s very early days, along with a number of songs that hadn’t previously been released.

Side A

1. Born Again Christian (track 5 on The Province Complains, 2007)

2. A Different Light (track 3 on All Blackshirts To Me, 2012)

3. The Cold Hands of Great Men (from Draw In The Reins EP, 2006 and track 16 on Dealing In Antiques, 2010)

4. Steady Pace (track 5 on Our Temperance Movement, 2009)

5. End Of Straight Street (track 12 on The Province Complains, 2007)

Side B

1.  Don’t Say It Could Be Worse (track 7 on Dealing In Antiques, 2010 – originally recorded but not released in 2004)

2. Lay Down Your Arms (track 2 on Our Temperance Movement, 2009)

3. After The Fact (track 5 on All Blackshirts To Me, 2012)

4. Garden Lights (track 7 on Our Temperance Movement, 2009)

5. Solid Work (track 10 on Dealing In Antiques, 2010 – originally recorded but not released in 2002)

JC

There might be a few of you who missed Volume 1 of the Cats on Fire ICA.  It was published in May 2022  – click here for the link.

Here’s the two sides of that ICA.

Side A (19:19)

Side B (21:27)

I’m going to let someone else tell you why Cats on Fire were such a wonderful band.  This appeared in the Guardian newspaper back on 4 May 2012, and was penned by Neil Kulkarni.

“A wet Wednesday night in London, and a handbag is repeatedly hitting us in the face. We don’t care, because we’re dancing – as is the handbagger – to the best pop music being made on the planet right now. The crew responsible for ramming out the steaming Bull and Gate is Finland’s fantastic Cats on Fire, fondly loved in Europe yet virtually unknown in the UK, where they have difficulty even getting their records released.

That’s odd, considering the three albums they’ve given us since 2007 do nothing less than reinject possibilities, politics, wit, erudition and joy into guitar pop. We’re not just here, nose-to-nipple, because we love Cats on Fire, or because they also happen to be the best-looking band on Earth. We’re here because 2007’s The Province Complains contained I Am the White Mantled King, one of the greatest songs of this millennium; because 2009’s Our Temperance Movement was the most pristinely perfect pop album seemingly no one but us ever heard; because this year’s All Blackshirts to Me is, impossibly, even better. Cats on Fire are sleeping on someone’s floor tonight. By rights, it should be the Queen’s; by rights, as everyone here knows, they should be stars.

“I don’t love music more than anything else,” admits the lead singer and songwriter Mattias Bjorkas, “which means I haven’t been blinded by the love of music. And I have certainly not been blinded by money. I was a very straight-edge, socialist youth – Cats on Fire has been my lesson in frustration and dealing with second-bests sometimes, but we try to always make the music move on and matter.“

The five-piece has come together in fits and starts from the small, isolated town of Vaasa, sharpening and solidifying their magic every step of the way. “No music industry tentacles were long enough to reach as far up north as we were in Vaasa,” Bkorkas says. “But trying to be loved was always my main preoccupation, whatever political or musical ideas I may have presented as the true spirit of Cats on Fire. I nurtured the idea of a small, provincial army that was musically righteous and ready to strike against the trendy, metropolitan hypocrisy.”

They make songs you can’t shake and write lyrics that stop your day in its tracks, the sound exquisitely puckered throughout by Ville Hopponen‘s addictive licks, Iiris Viljanen‘s poptastic keyboards, and the band’s sheer stealth and grace. The last time you felt this way about indie-pop was Pulp. Yeah – that good. Judging by tonight’s rapturous reception, it’s only their own shyness that’s stopping Cats on Fire becoming major stars.

“In big cities,” Bjorkas says, “we observe all the other groups of four or five people with good haircuts, unable to shake the worst thought of all – that each of these 10,000 bands had an idea as valid as our own.”

They don’t. Not by a long chalk. All Blackshirts To Me is European album of the year. Avail yourselves immediately.”

Sadly, it would be the last album the band would release. Across the three LPs and various singles and EPs (many of which were collated on the compilation Dealing In Antiques, released in 2010), there are more than 50 songs from which to narrow things down to as perfect an ICA as I can deliver. It’s 12 songs long, on the grounds that it deserves to be.

Side A

1. Horoscope (track 1 on Our Temperance Movement, 2009)

2. My Friend In A Comfortable Chair (single, 2007 and track 8 on Dealing In Antiques, 2010)

3. The Smell Of An Artist (from Draw In The Reins EP, 2006 and track 14 on Dealing In Antiques)

4. Draw In The Reins (re-recorded version – track 11 on The Province Complains 2007)

5. 1914 and Beyond (track 7 on All Blackshirts To Me, 2012)

6. Tears In Your Cup (track 6 on Our Temperance Movement, 2009)

Side B

1. I Am The White-Mantled King (track 1 on The Province Complains, 2007)

2. My Sense Of Pride (track 2 on All Blackshirts To Me, 2012)

3. Letters From A Voyage To Sweden (track 3 on Our Temperance Movement, 2009)

4. Higher Grounds (track 3 on The Province Complains, 2007)

5. Our Old Centre Back (track 1 on All Blackshirts To Me, 2012)

6. The Borders Of This Land (track 8 on Our Temperance Movement, 2009)

JC

To listen to Cats On Fire is to step back in time to an era when my jeans had a waist size in the high 20s and my t-shirt labels didn’t feature the letter L far less one or more or the letter X.

But to simply suggest that Cats on Fire are a pastiche of the fabulous jingly-jangly guitar pop of the 80s would be doing them a huge disservice. Yes, they take the very best bits of bands like The Smiths, The Go Betweens, Felt along with others who emerged from C86 movement but somehow they also sprinkle their own fairy dust to the sound and deliver something that is incredibly fresh, important and special. It is prime indie music influenced by the prime indie music era. Cats on Fire make a noise that is magical, exciting. melodic, joyous, infectious and incredibly danceable. I close my eyes and once again I’m wearing skinny jeans, hipster trainers and a t-shirt that sits flat over my stomach.

I have no idea why the world has singularly failed to take notice of this wonderful band nor why the world’s media don’t hang on every utterance from lead singer and main songwriter Matthias Bjorkas who is one of those ridiculously intelligent, charming, talented and good-looking musicians that boys and girls fall in love with in equal measures.  He should be the 21st Century equivalent of Moz or Jarvis and yet he’s barely known even in his home country of Finland or in the neighbouring territories that make up Scandanavia.

The band took their first tentative steps as long ago as 2001 and have gone through some personnel changes over the past 12 years or so.  To begin with it was singles and EPs with the debut LP not appearing until 2007.  All told, there’s been around 60 songs of the highest quality you could ask for :-

mp3 : Cats On Fire – I Am The White-Mantled King

mp3 : Cats On Fire – Letters From A Voyage To Sweden

mp3 : Cats on Fire – 1914 And Beyond

mp3 : Cats On Fire – My Friend In A Comfortable Chair

Taken respectively from The Province Complains (2007), Our Temperance Movement (2009), All Blackshirts To Me (2012) and Dealing In Antiques (2010) – the latter being a compilation that gathers up many of the early singles/EPs that are now almost impossible to find in their original formats. All of these releases really do deserve your attention and can be ordered from a number of places across the internet.  I cannot recommend them highly enough.  Why not ask Santa to bring them to you next month??