I’ve maintained a steady morning routine these past few weeks: coffee, kittens, and Adam Schatz’s freeform jazz opus, Civil Engineering Vol. 1, followed by Taylor Dallas Vidic’s Cat & Mouse, which features an intoxicating blend of jazz and Americana. Vidic, who’s based out of Juneau, Alaska, is part chanteuse, with her smoky vocals backed by strings, brassy bits and muted horns, and part folk-flavored singer-songwriter whose clear tones conjure favorites of decades past. (When I played one of her videos the other night via our TV’s YouTube app, for instance, my wife mentioned that she reminded her of Joni.)
Cat & Mouse gathers 13 tracks that span the gamut, opening with the strings- and mandolin-tinged “Falling Out of Love,” which delves into a relationship’s dissolution. “Trash Birds”steps through a time portal to explore the opposite, when the Cupid’s arrow first glances the heart, and the reaction some have to the sting: Get me outta this place! Wariness of love, of giving one’s self wholly to another, is a scary proposition, after all, especially for those who’ve been hurt before. The uptempo “High” flies to the moon, just about, while Vidic yearns for a certain someone who’s no longer in her life. “Bein’ Free,” about freedom’s confines, brings to mind the smoky jazz of Melody Gardot, while “Wet Tennis Shoes”—about the child left behind when a father walked out on his family—furthers the same mood. “In a Song” is a delicate, upright bass-driven tune that tackles a topic familiar to many writers: It’s sometimes easier to write something than to say it aloud. The album’s jazz half concludes with the title track, in which she contemplates whether she’d rather be the hunter or hunted when it comes to love. (In truth, it doesn’t much matter—as often as not, as the Marvelettes once sang, the hunter gets captured by the game.)
The folk-flavored, Americana-accented half of the album begins with the country-tinged “Twice a Day,” inspired by a stint in New York City. Could a soulmate be standing beside her on the subway platform? (As she notes in the press release, for someone from a town where everyone knows you or of you, it’s a wild experience to be just another nameless face in a big city.) “Muse,” the song that caught Diane’s ear, recalls a fleeting yet memorable encounter.
“In Your Arms” explores something artists of all stripes should identify with: when one’s dreams are larger than those of your friends. “Better in Black” narrows the window to the musicians among us and how some, at a certain juncture, step off the merry-go-round. The gently rockin’ “Stockades,” meanwhile, digs into flushed moments that leave us spellbound until the morning after, when reality sets in. The album closes with an acoustic take on the title track, presenting the yin to the jazz rendition’s yang.
As I mentioned up top, for the past few weeks I’ve been playing Cat & Mouse alongside a freeform jazz album. The jazzy first half serves as a delightful decompression in that context, yet works well on its own, too; it reminds me of the lilting jazz-pop served up by Melody Gardot and Peggy Lee, among others. The folky Americana half is as wonderful; while it conjures singers and songs of yesterday and yesteryear, those comparisons linger only so long. Then the performances, arrangements and songs usher us into the now, the musical equivalent of the “Stockades” she sings about. In short, Cat & Mouse is a thoroughly enjoyable excurison that’s well worth taking.
The Old Grey Cat 