Artist:The Native Cats

Tasmanian electronic pub rock iconoclasts the Native Cats have, after ten years, become completely unmoored. Chloe Alison Escott read Nevada, spun out into an unplanned gender crisis, then finally transitioned, changed her name and became one of those true authentic selves you hear about on the news; Julian Teakle read The Big Midweek, stopped writing Peter Hook bass lines and started writing Steve Hanley ones instead. Metamorphosis! Tumult! And a new album: at last, on RIP Society, their meticulous masterpiece, John Sharp Toro. The timeline tells the story. They recorded ten songs in a day at their home studio in South Hobart. They didn't touch any of it for almost a year while Chloe's whole life exploded and reassembled itself. Then Chloe channeled some of that personal transformation into the album, retaining Julian's invigorating bass lines but radically re-recording and rearranging everything else. The end result merges the chaotic urgency of Swell Maps and the Fall with the ...