Bono, Pharrell, The National, Michael Stipe, & More Pay Tribute To A Dead Cat On New Album

Bono, Pharrell, The National, Michael Stipe, & More Pay Tribute To A Dead Cat On New Album

Sophie Calle is a 64-year-old French conceptual artist who, while being interviewed for a T Magazine profile last year, appeared to be pregnant. It turned out she was in midst of pretending to carry and give birth to her cat, Souris, who died back in 2014. As NPR reports, that cat has now become the subject of a star-studded tribute album.

Bono, Pharrell, Michael Stipe, the National, Laurie Anderson, Jarvis Cocker, and more contributed tracks to Souris Calle, a 37-track album on which every song is about Souris. Artnet adds that the songs debuted this past Saturday at Calle’s solo show at Galerie Perrotin in Paris. And now they’re online for the world to hear.

Bono kicks things off with a voicemail message that becomes a spoken-word piece backed by dramatic music. The National contribute “La violon blanc de Monsieur Souris,” which is basically a regular National song, except about a dead cat. Anderson’s “A Cat Named Mouse” also sounds like a National song, Sleep Well Beast era. Cocker’s track is a lovely instrumental called “A Cat Called Souris.” Pharrell chips in a short, jaunty instrumental of his own, while Stipe’s “Souris nocturne” builds some swell documentary music out of tubular bells and rock instrumentation, his unmistakable voice eventually making a surprise appearance.

Other contributors include Jean-Michel Jarre, Casey Spooner, the Strokes’ Fabrizio Moretti… the list goes on. Stream the full 95-minute album below.

Souris Calle is out now on Perrotin and available to order in 3xLP vinyl and a deluxe autographed edition.

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