Mistress Stephanie & Her Melodic Cat – Take That

Spawned from the cabaret act of Adam Sultan and Stephanie Stephens, this is not the typical sound one would expect to hear from a band based in Austin Texas. This eccentric pair of actor/musicians have gotten together to create a live show that’s been described as “a cross between Kraftwerk and Cabaret” and Take That is their debut release.

It’s almost as if Frank Zappa has teamed up with the B52’s to create a comedy musical, Sultan’s guitar riffs that intersperse this Rocky Horror style album reek of Zappa, which isn’t a bad thing and his vocal style works well with Stephen’s soprano. The album begins rather appropriately with a drum roll, leading us into a short and mischievous sounding piano instrumental. As the intro comes to an end we’re led rather abruptly into a musical introduction of our eccentric duo with ‘Get Off My Chest’ which gives us more show tune style piano and an infectious, almost Greek sounding guitar part that pans lazily from left to right.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that this would lead into more of the same but we’re taken swiftly into the realms of electro pop with ‘Shake Your Dance Stick’ the piano has been forsaken for a sparse arrangement of synth bass and drum loops, surprisingly the cabaret vocals actually still sit pretty well within this, and at times it sounds slightly reminiscent of Gary Numan.

The album continues in this manner all the way through, changing periodically between electro pop and cabaret, right up until the last track ‘You Say You Love Me’, which sounds as if it belongs on the end credits of a romantic comedy starring Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan. It’s a beautiful ballad with a sarcastic lyrical undertone, keeping it in step with the dry humour that’s present throughout this album.

This is a highly ambitious debut release with fairly complex arrangements within the cabaret songs, in which there’s a lot going on with layered vocals, organs, guitars, slide whistles and various other weird and wonderful sounds, but at no point does it sound over crowded, they’ve done a great job in the studio, and by contrast the simplicity of the electro pop songs also works well. Take That is a brilliant album, it’s fun, sarcastic, and catchy. My only criticism is the transition between songs sometimes feels a little too drastic at some points, which can take the emphasis away from this album working as a complete piece.

By Adrian Killens