Shadow Cat

Robyn Hitchcock goes through periods where he writes an unfathomable amount of great songs. He's said that his approach is to try whatever comes to his mind and see if it has traction. These recordings were made in the '90s, with a few of the songs landing elsewhere. Hitchcock's version of Jimi Hendrix's "The Wind Cries Mary" made it to the album version of Storefront Hitchcock, while another take of "Statue with a Walkman" ended up on the vinyl edition. "The Green Boy" found its official entry on A Star for Bram, yet another collection of outtakes. There's something magical about Hitchcock in demo mode. What his songs lack in precise, electrified productions they usually make up for with imagistic acoustic reveries like "High on Yourself," where he sounds as if he's gliding away on the piano notes and slippery reverb. "Because You're Over" and "Real Dot" feature Hitchcock messing with a vocoder, which is good for a novelty, while "The Cat Walks Her Kind of Line" is an instrumental with an eerie bareness.