VVAA - 'For The Birds: The Birdsong Project' Vol. I-V
2022 - Digital / 20xLP BOX (Search Party / Downtown Records)

*benefit comp for the National Audubon Society*

My Cat Is An Alien "Chant For The Swinging Swallows" is the previously unreleased track included in 'For The Birds, Volume V' compilation. It's part of the NYC benefit BIDSONG PROJECT, so all Digital + monster 20LP Box will support directly US National Audubon Society , which protects birds all over the Planet.

FOR THE BIRDS: THE BIRDSONG PROJECT is a massive, sweeping projec
set up by movies/TV music supervisor Randall Poster.
Featuring an astounding 242 tracks, this first-of-its-kind collection of music, poems and artwork celebrates our feathered friends in the sky, exploring the naturalistic sounds of birdcall from a multitude of artistic vistas.

Among those participating are musicians the likes of Yoko Ono, Philip Glass, Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, John Cale, Beck, Daniel Lanois, Terry Riley, Thurston Moore, The Flaming Lips, Calexico, Van Dyke Parks, Alice Coltrane, Lee Ranaldo, Jim Jarmush/Squrl, Evan Parker, Bill Frisell, Animal Collective, Damon Albarn, Laurie Anderson, Elvis Costello,
plus poems read by actors as Sean Penn, Tilda Swinton, Matthew McConaughey, Michelle Williams, Olivia Wilde, Daryl Hannah, Michael Keaton, Adrien Brody, Liam Neeson among MANY MANY MORE.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Music For Phantoms (IV)'
2022 - Digital / Art Edition Lathe Cut LP (Elliptical Noise / Opax)
OPX 048

The global madness which is ravaging this "new" world seems to call out loud the need for the strong poetics behind My Cat Is An Alien’s peculiar project called MUSIC FOR PHANTOMS, whose last release dates back to 12 years ago as a triple box set published by Elliptical Noise Records.

MUSIC FOR PHANTOMS (IV) has been recorded in the middle of the night at MCIAA’s HQ in the Western Alps with only 2 glockenspiels, wordless vocals and a single condenser microphone to capture the essence of the screaming silence. The instantaneously composed music manifests itself as a sparkling distillate of pure poetry in an ocean of iridescent silence and estranging analog morphologies.

In the deepest heart of the night, in those hours that belong to the dimension inhabited by the spirits, in the same instants sealed by a silence so clear that it becomes deafening noise, every single note of the glockenspiels whispers the words of the solitary souls that emerge from the darkness like traces of shooting stars. In this perspective, MCIAA immortalized on Polaroid Duochrome films yellow dots of their light installation dragged on the snowy mantle under the night sky.

MUSIC FOR PHANTOMS is the symbol of a urgent, poetic vision: a “light” that does not yet intend to fade away.

*** ART EDITION LATHE CUT LP ***
Private Press Edition of 19 hand-numbered copies.
Acrylic painting intervention + installed Polaroid Duochrome film + handwritings on cover by Roberto Opalio. Includes insert. Signed and hand-numbered by the artists.
Hand-cut one by one from analogue tape directly on transparent lathe cut LP.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & JOELLE VINCIARELLI - ' > ETERNAL BEYOND > III '
2021 - Private Press LP / Digital (Opax / Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers!)
OPX 047 / UATWM 017

According to arcane, ancient cultures, sometimes things must come to an end to be "Eternal". My Cat Is An Alien & Joëlle Vinciarelli's > ETERNAL BEYOND > III is the 3rd and final chapter of a Trilogy born in spring 2015.
Based on a vision of radical and spontaneous free improvisation which the Opalio brothers have pushed to the extreme along their 23 years of tireless activity as MCIAA, the project with Joëlle Vinciarelli has immediately revealed as a key encounter, both artistically and personally.
> ETERNAL BEYOND > tracks’ titles often paid tribute to figures of artists, poets, musicians and outsiders such as Albert Ayler, William Blake, Dylan Thomas, Art Ensemble Of Chicago… Here the clairvoyant title concluding the Trilogy is > ETERNAL ÉTERNITÉ > , an homage to poet Arthur Rimbaud.

*** Private Press Limited Edition of 100 hand-numbered copies. ***
Marble Violet-Blue Color Vinyl LP.
Hand-pasted artwork on printed jackets. 3 art cards.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Hypnotherapy'
2021 - Cassette / Digital (Lost Treasures Of The Underworld / USA)

"My Cat Is An Alien's new full-length album "HYPNOTHERAPY" re-imagines an entirely new spectrum of light (and dark) manifested in the form of an analog cassette on NYC based Lost Treasures of the Underworld records. As suggested by the title, this masterly crafted work of 100% "hypno-alien-therapy-music", will induce you to relax your cracked soul floating in space in a sublime, trance-like state of consciousness, completely out of time and ordinary reality. - As they wander thru the vast distance of the multi-verse, MCIAA makes a rare visit to new far off world and offers us this glimpse.

Details of the exact location and the year/month/day of this recording have been omitted, just letting us know it was "recorded live in the pre-pandemic world".

"Italy’s premier duo My Cat Is An Alien are often found creating odd space noises on homemade instruments. This tape is all that. It’s a single track, split between two sides, beginning with glistening vocals held aloft by unusual string action. After a little while, the orgone accumulators rev up and everything transmutes into something like a long simmering jam at London’s Roundhouse between Dik Mik from Hawkwind and a couple of staggering members of BYG era Gong.
Just great!" - BYRON COLEY / The Wire.

*** Transparent blue cassette in full-color 6-panel J-card with artwork by Roberto Opalio and design by MCIAA. ***
Limited edition of only 100.

THE STRANGE STRINGS ENSEMBLE - 'One for Ra'
2021 - Private Press LP / Digital (Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers! / Opax)
UATWM 014 / OPX 046

THE STRANGE STRINGS ENSEMBLE
(My Cat Is An Alien, Joëlle Vinciarelli, Philippe Robert)

ONE FOR RA is an instantaneous composition. The music is totally improvised. Total improvisation without any preconceived score or structure equals composition for us.
ONE FOR RA is dedicated to Sun Ra. In particular it’s a tribute to the album Sun-Ra and his Astro Infinity Arkestra “Strange Strings”, first released on his own Saturn label in 1967.

We all played a spontaneous composition performing ancient, mostly ethnic, acoustic string instruments from Vinciarelli’s vast collection. All instruments were completely “untuned”, thus following Sun Ra’s approach to that peculiar work—which he called “a study in ignorance”. The sounds are acoustic and no electronics are involved—except for a short, real-time looped vocal part. No use of overdubs nor outtakes.
ONE FOR RA has been performed at the end of some days of intense recording sessions for My Cat Is An Alien & Joëlle Vinciarelli’s project > ETERNAL BEYOND > . The idea came out the same day during a conversation with Philippe Robert, renowned music critic and writer as well as self-declared non-musician. Thus his involvement in the performance as fourth member of the group was even more exciting and challenging.
Listening to the final piece, the extreme cohesion of sound at times makes it difficult to be sure who was playing what. Yet that’s a further point to enter into the core of the composition. We highly suggest to the listener to forget there are four people on this recording and try to hear it as a whole. ONE FOR RA, indeed!
--Maurizio & Roberto Opalio, Saturn, Solar System, March 2021

NOTE: this record is also conceived as a sort of compendium to the book by My Cat Is An Alien & Philippe Robert
“FREE JAZZ MANIFESTO” published by Lenka lente editions in April 2021.

*** Marble Turquoise / Petrol Color Vinyl LP. Private Press limited edition Ltd.100. ***
Pasted artwork on printed cover, each with unique color markers' variations by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio.
Includes insert on fine art paper + 24" x 12" ful-color double sided "FREE JAZZ MANIFESTO" poster.
Hand-numbered 1/100 on back.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'The World that IS and IS NOT'
2020 - Private Press Color LP / Digital (Opax Private Press)
OPX 045

'The World that IS and IS NOT' is the enigmatic title of My Cat Is An Alien's new "concept album". 'The World that IS and IS NOT' is the existential reflection of MCIAA on 2020: a pandemic scenario where everything seems to vanish into the Void.
Explicitly dedicating this new studio album to the dark ages we’re all living through, more than ever MCIAA stand strong to claim that Music and Art are the primary and true “cure” for spiritual disquiet and moral despair.
Thus the music herein is highly spiritual, sensitive, soft and warm… surprisingly lyrical. Its celestial melodies cannot but induce to transcendental meditations. MCIAA offer a one-way ticket to still unexplored otherwordly territories and better realms of space-time consciousness.
An inborn wisdom that Roberto Opalio resumes in his poem handwritten on the album insert: "In the endless vortex of No-Thing / […] I still do believe / Art can save my Spiritual Noise soul".

Produced by MCIAA in multi-dimensional, fully dynamics-frequency spectrum “STEREOALIEN FIDELITY”.
Released on the renewed Opax Private Press imprint in a first, ultra-limited and hand-numbered edition of 100 Silver Color Vinyl LPs, housed in full-color printed jacket with folded cover/insert on Italian fine art linen textured 250g cardboard. Includes a 70x50 cm Poster. Cover and poster painting by Roberto Opalio. Design by MCIAA.

*** Silver Color Vinyl LP + Poster (70x50 cm). ***
Folded cover/insert on Italian fine art linen textured 250g cardboard.
Full-color printed jacket designed by MCIAA.
(1st Pressing handnumbered 1/100.)

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & JEAN-MARC MONTERA - 'Nuit d'Hiver'
2020 - Private Press Color LP / Digital (The End mAde RecordS / Opax)
TEARS 003 / OPX 044

It was on a winter’s night ('Nuit d'Hiver' indeed) five days before Christmas 2018, when My Cat Is An Alien and Jean-Marc Montera joined on stage to perform for the second time as a trio, proving once again their heavenly graced and powerful music-mind-soul connection. Recorded live at the final edition of the REEVOX-NUIT D’HIVER festival at GMEM in Marseille, ‘Nuit d’Hiver’ is a true musical hurricane of radical free jazz and “Spiritual Noise”. Such a gifted performance could only be blessed by immortal spirits like Cecyl Taylor, Sonny Sharrock, Albert Ayler, Ornette Coleman… an otherwordly Titans’ “beauty of the fury”!

Produced by MCIAA in their newly branded multi-dimensional, fully dynamics-frequency spectrum “STEROALIEN FIDELITY”, this LP will make your ears feel projected into an unexplored universe of sound.

MCIAA & JMM created a strongly conceptual and multi-sensorial work, an immersive music, visual and tactile experience: all covers are handmade one by one, with unique variations in colors and embossing/ debossing results. The cover artwork comes from a hand etching on vinyl by Roberto & Maurizio Opalio, then completed by JM Montera who printed every single cover jacket using the ancient tecniques of French “gravure” (75 hand-numbered exemplars on white jackets) and “marouflage” (25 signed and hand-numbered exemplars on black jackets).

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & JOELLE VINCIARELLI - ' > ETERNAL BEYOND > II '
2020 - Private Press LP / Digital (Up Against The Wall Motherfuckers! / Opax)
UATWM 011 / OPX 043

Chapter II in the ongoing, electroshock project > ETERNAL BEYOND > carried out by My Cat Is An Alien and Joëlle Vinciarelli. > ETERNAL BEYOND > proudly fights to act as a dangerous, conspirative unit escaping all radars of our GPS-controlled society, re-affirming once again the total freedom of its unique music and vision. This second release demonstrates how much the partnership between the two space-brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio and the “French queen of grunt” Joëlle Vinciarelli (Talweg, La Morte Young) is growing stronger and stronger, following uniquely their own language. The trio deliberately imposes upon itself a self-exile over the edge of the sub-underground, since today the foundation of the so-called “underground music” has been corrupted for the sake of mere mystification and sneaky business. > ETERNAL BEYOND > fights for Authenticity against Emptyness.

Thus, take all your well-known notions of avant-garde, experimental music, noise, free jazz, drone, raga, minimalism, maximalism, primitive folk, ancient ritual music, ethnic sacred chants, total improvisation: shake them all together… and then thrash it all! > ETERNAL BEYOND > is “The New Thing” of tomorrow, “The New Unknown”.

>> LISTEN >>

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / JEAN-MARC MONTERA / LEE RANALDO - 'MCIAA XX Anniversary'
2019 - Double LP+Artbook+DL / Artbook+DL / Digital (Antigravitational Records)
NTG-1001

On September 12, 2018 Sonic Youth co-founder Lee Ranaldo and guitarist extraordinaire Jean-Marc Montera joined Maurizio and Roberto Opalio in their hometown Torino, Italy, to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the brothers’ visionary project My Cat Is An Alien. That evening the stage of Alfa Teatro—a liberty-style, historical theater built in 1928—hosted the live world premiere of this quartet, whose members already collaborated live and on records with each other during the years, yet never all the four together. The quartet live performance followed MCIAA’s radical aesthetic of “instantaneous composition”, where nothing is defined nor drafted prior to the act of music creation, and every sound and action is shaped around a higher-order scheme dictated by the empathy and synergy of the actual moment of enlightenment. The show was also accompanied by the projection of a brand new cinematic poetry dual film created by Roberto Opalio and previewed on the occasion, whose Super-8 film’s relentless flickering and ascending motion worked “ad hoc” to match the music and body gestures of the performance, thus enhancing its transcendental power.
That night Maurizio Opalio (self-made double-bodied wooden string instrument, pedal effects, bell), Roberto Opalio (wordless vocalizations, bodhran, Alientronics, electric guitar, space toys), Jean-Marc Montera (table top guitar, pedals, little gong), and Lee Ranaldo (vocals, electric guitar, bells) moved through still unexplored and unheard music territories.
This music is a pure ecstatic revelation, a unique, powerful and spiritual experience all of its own. Listening to this album we are offered a true epiphany as just uniquely gifted genius improvisers/composers of the past would grace our ears and souls.

>> LISTEN >>

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Spiritual Noise__Vol.2'
2019 - LP+Artbook+DL / Artbook+DL / Digital (Antigravitational Records)
NTG-1000

“Art is... nothing... if not vision. / Vision is... nothing... if not poetry. / Poetry is... nothing... if not music. / Music is... nothing... if not noise. / Noise is... nothing... if not spirit. / Spirit is... nothing... if not love. THURSTON MOORE, 2019 (dedication poem to My Cat Is An Alien’s “Spiritual Noise”).

"SPIRITUAL NOISE" is how My Cat Is An Alien baptized their own music and intermedia work at the beginning of their third decade of activity. Volume 2 in the ‘Spiritual Noise’ ongoing series is a further step ahead in the unheard new music territories of MCIAA. Released on the new ANTIGRAVITATIONAL imprint—the record label & multimedia platform created and curated by MCIAA and set up with gallerist and publisher Marco Contini—and designed following principles of seriality and of installation art, the vinyl LP takes the shape of a multimedia object which displays a proper artbook mounted on the cover jacket, and gives access to cinematic poetry films and extra contents for a fully immersive experience.

“After regularly immersing myself in the otherworldly vision of My Cat is an Alien for the last several years, I sometimes forget how incredibly far beyond recognizable, earthbound sounds the Opalios have traveled in their twenty years of recording. Aside from Roberto's spectral signature vocals, ‘Spiritual Noise’ feels like it could have been crafted almost entirely from haunting and mysterious transmissions picked up by the SETI institute.[..] Record store shelves are full of well-meaning bearded men wielding tablas and tamburas, hellbent on prying open my third eye or kicking down my doors of perception. Some of them have made some absolutely wonderful albums, but none have gone as far as My Cat is an Alien.” BRAINWASHED (USA)

“ ‘Spiritual Noise’ transcends the frontiers of advanced music. Superb! ” Rate 5/5 - LOOP. CL

>> LISTEN >>

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Spiritual Noise__Vol.1'
2019 - LP+Artbook+DL / Artbook+DL / Digital (Antigravitational Records)
NTG-0999

Debut release by the new ANTIGRAVITATIONAL imprint, the record label & multimedia platform created and curated by My Cat Is An Alien (MCIAA), set up with gallerist and publisher Marco Contini.

"MCIAA PHASE THREE — WE BAPTIZE THE SPIRITUAL NOISE" reads Roberto Opalio’s aesthetics Manifesto: SPIRITUAL NOISE opens the third decade of activity by iconoclastic instantaneous composers, musicians, performers and visual artists Maurizio and Roberto Opalio.

Fully focused on MCIAA’s "aliencentric" vision, Antigravitational’s main purpose is to offer the experience of the deepest immersion in the sound and visual matter of each work of intermedia art by the brothers–as duo, as soloists, as well as in collaborations with some of the most talented artists of our time.
Pursuing their ongoing fight against the digital-only fruition of concepts and contents of today, MCIAA privilege the thingness of physical mediums to fix their art, aiming to survive the non-permanence over time.
Designed following principles of seriality and of installation art, each release takes the shape of a multimedia object which displays a proper artbook mounted on the LP cover jacket, and gives access to cinematic poetry films and extra contents as further investigations. Various combinations of objects and formats are intended to provide an ever-expanding universe of multistratified references and meanings.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & Thurston Moore - 'PoesiaSonorAlienica'
2018 - 7" White Flexi-disc (Opax 20th Private Press)

33 ⅓ RPM, Single Sided WHITE FLEXI-DISC pressed at GZ Vinyl.
Cover artwork by MCIAA on 140-gram white faux leather paper.
Limited handnumbered edition of 210 copies.

voices + sounds: MCIAA & THURSTON
art: MCIAA

PRIVATE EDITION TO CELEBRATE MCIAA'S 20TH ANNIVERSARY AND THURSTON'S 60TH BIRTHDAY

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'The Sky With Broken Arms'
2018 - CD / Digital (Elliptical Noise / Opax - Canada)
ΑΩ6577CD - OPX040

‘The Sky With Broken Arms’ is the brand new studio album by MY CAT IS AN ALIEN which officially opens the duo’s 20th ANNIVERSARY in 2018–a year rich of exciting projects, collaborations and releases. Brothers MAURIZIO and ROBERTO OPALIO have been active as radical instantaneous composers since the beginning in early 1998, their work always characterized by the willingness to challenge oneself and throw oneself forward towards the unknown realms of art, intended as the highest projection and expression of the self. This ongoing, imperative challenge brought MCIAA’s musical research towards constant innovation, making each of their 200+ musical releases a step onward, and their entire opus simply unique. “[..] there are few other artists who have been so unwaveringly challenging and iconoclastic for as long as the Opalios" (Anthony D’Amico, BRAINWASHED). The deep authenticity of their sound has always shined throughout the large number of collaborations set up during the years with vanguards such as SONIC YOUTH, JIM O'ROURKE, KEIJI HAINO, CHRISTIAN MARCLAY, MATS GUSTAFSSON, JEAN-MARC MONTERA, NELS CLINE, LOREN CONNORS, among many others. MCIAA’s rare live performances mirror the brothers’ vision of the creative act as the most powerful shamanic ritual, bringing together their performative action with the diverse aspects of their intermedia activities like the “cinematic poetry” films by Roberto Opalio. Their idiosyncratic improvising skill and extraordinary psychic connection have been under the radar of thousands of visitors during the opening days of the 57th VENICE ART BIENNALE in May 2017, when MCIAA activated the Studio Venezia project at the French Pavilion invited by artist XAVIER VEILHAN and curator CHRISTIAN MARCLAY.
The new album ‘The Sky With Broken Arms’ is therefore a further step ahead into the realm of the unknown, where the music made of minimal, dreamy guitar chords and eerie wordless vocals over a dense layer of crackling noise comes out of a strong conceptual idea.
As Roberto Opalio’s foreword to the work reads “A winter day two years ago I found out that an entire section of my vinyl records collection was completely ruined by an inexplicable oxidation process. [..] As a first reaction, I decided not to play those records ever again... and that I did, for a long time. ‘Til one night, exhausted, I felt the absolute urgency to listen to one of those LPs whose musical content got buried by the vinyl surface noise. In that moment the shocking epiphany: [..] slowly, I began to perceive that not only the old, beloved sounds I was used to were all still there, but also that the layer of ground noise obliged me to an even more attentive and active listening; thus I was discovering very subtle sound details now claiming their own being and pretending their own space. The idea of a new MCIAA album came out of this enlightenment. A new concept concerning the representation of music on the one hand and its perception on the other. A music so essential and precious as to be discovered by the listener little by little, because hidden by a blanket of crackling noise, which I obtained from the blank grooves of my damaged vinyls. Thus, here we are: infinite spaces of disintegration and psycho-existential ecstasy… essentially, spaces of non-limited, non-stoppable Poetry”.
The not-compressed, not-balanced mastering devised by MCIAA provides a natural, immersive listening experience. CD comes in full-color gatefold digisleeve. Cover art features an intense photography shot on 35mm slide film by Roberto Opalio. Artwork design by MCIAA.

WATCH OFFICIAL VIDEO

ROBERTO OPALIO - 'Once you'll touch the sky you will never return to dust'
2018 - CD / Digital (Elliptical Noise / Opax - Canada)
ΑΩ6578CD - OPX041

‘Once you'll touch the sky you will never return to dust’ is the fifth studio album by ROBERTO OPALIO (“the more sinister half of MY CAT IS AN ALIEN” according to BYRON COLEY). Along with My Cat Is An Alien’s ‘The Sky With Broken Arms’, this solo release officially opens the duo’s 20th Anniversary in 2018–a year rich of exciting projects, collaborations and releases.
In addition to his innate, idiosyncratic improvisation skill, Roberto’s contribution to My Cat Is An Alien was to give the project a strong multimedia and visual esthetics which still stands out as a distinctive trait. He indeed created the “alien cat” logo, My Cat Is An Alien’s trademark, which was initially hand sprayed on the handcrafted covers of MCIAA’s first ‘self-titled’ CD-R, then associated with the brothers’ own Opax Records private imprint, printed on posters and t-shirts, even used as subject of some of the duo’s artist books. Having been doing painting, glass art and photography for several years before MCIAA formed, his own works in visual art revealed a rich source of material to use as cover artworks of the band’s 200+ albums released worldwide so far. Especially, Roberto Opalio’s iconic figure of the “Alien”, “[..] a stick figure with widely extended arms and legs, its head a single sharply elliptical eye, permanently open and staring out at the universe that surrounds it [..]” (Ken Hollings / THE WIRE), symbolizing the transfiguration of the existential vision of the last human being on Earth, gets painted, drawn or sculpted in iron wire in most of his works, including his “cinematic poetry” films projected during MCIAA’s live performances. Photography had a great impact on MCIAA’s imaginary as well, Roberto capturing with b&w 35mm films, slides and Polaroids thousands of views of his hometown Turin’s industrial monuments of early 1900’s before politicians demolished almost everything–this is the reason why the cover of MCIAA’s ‘Landscapes Of An Electric City’ released by THURSTON MOORE on his Ecstatic Peace! label is now a prime example of “ghost cover”. Polaroids played a distinctive role also during the band’s live performances: Roberto’s ‘On-Stage Live Action Series’ art installations testimony hundreds of shots taken while playing his trademarked “space toys”, which he abandoned in 2012 for primitive, modified electronic devices called “alientronics”.
Well known for his unique wordless vocalizations, his more sporadic spoken word poems reveal Roberto Opalio’s mastery in entitling all of MCIAA’s albums and pieces since the beginning. Roberto Opalio exhibited alongside artists such as MIKE KELLEY, RAYMOND PETTIBON, TONY CONRAD, JOHN CAGE, WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS, GERARD RICHTER to name a few. With his brother Maurizio he’s been under the radar of thousands of visitors during the opening days of the 57th Venice Art Biennale in May 2017, when MCIAA activated the Studio Venezia project at the French Pavilion invited by artist XAVIER VEILHAN and curator CHRISTIAN MARCLAY.
‘Once you'll touch the sky you will never return to dust’ is a new 1-hour long instantaneous composition performed with a prepared mini-keyboard, a handmade shortwave receiver and Roberto Opalio’s patented alientronics and wordless vocalizations. It is a masterpiece of modern minimalism, an ecstatic voyage where time and space lose their meaning, thus glorifying the poetic lyricism of the “here and now”, that “eternal now” that other visionary artists and vanguards of the past have always dealt with, from FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE to MUHAL RICHARD ABRAMS. “Towards the Sun”, headed ARTHUR RIMBAUD. “Space Is The Place”, asserted SUN RA.
CD comes in full-color gatefold digisleeve. The not-compressed mastering devised by MCIAA provides a natural, immersive listening experience. Cover art features one of the most stunning paintings by Roberto Opalio, created just before the album was sent to the pressing plant. Artwork design by MCIAA.

WATCH OFFICIAL VIDEO

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - "RE-SI-STEN-ZA!"
2018 - Metallic Gold Wax color LP + DL card / Digital (Opax Records / Elliptical Noise)
OPX039

Private press edition. 2018 REISSUE - New Packaging. "Metallic gold" color vinyl LP. Design by MCIAA.
Black cardboard jacket with 11"x8" glossy, paste-on cover artwork. Includes 2 double-sided inserts with poem lyrics, photographs, foreword by Roberto Opalio, MCIAA's portrait, full credits. Plus full-album DL card.

As foretaste of My Cat Is An Alien’s 20th anniversary in winter 2017-2018, their new LP "RE-SI-STEN-ZA!" well represents the summa of the duo's music activity, from their early space toys-era to the latest self-made electronics and string instruments outputs. Featuring two of the duo's longest compositions, the album reaches 50 minutes of NEW ALIEN MUSIC at highest analog quality, that My Cat Is An Alien claim to be "the complete communion between Alpha and Omega".
“RE-SI-STEN-ZA!” is a super limited two-track juggernaut […] The title track finds MCIAA at the height of their wiring and warping powers, an absolute wig flipped tour de force that sees them morphing through elements of noise, musique concrete, stoner earthbeat and cosmic spiritualism to craft out a truly immense and often brutal cranium collapsing palette of psychotropic goo which across 25 minutes of head tripping groove shapeshifts with such out there aplomb that you literally fear your mind might fry.” – MARK BARTON (The Sunday Experience)
"In 'Let Their Voices Speak Through The Wind', the voice becomes the key cornerstone of the instantaneous composition by transcending itself into a flux of infinite voices dislocated throughout the atemporal dimension of the Spheres, which float in the ether and permeate our physical bodies like “cosmic debris” lulled by the wind. Voices of ghosts that represent a blinding light within the deepest darkness of this more and more sad and lost Planet, and that leave a trace of beauty and existential meaning in our lives." - ROBERTO OPALIO (from liner notes)

A story of love and drunkenness with Venus in Zurich's forest, by avant-garde German writer and poet Oskar Panizza (1853-1921), well known for his "The Love Council".
This edition comes with a musical piece and illustrations by experimental intermedia duo My Cat Is An Alien.
Translation by Pierre Gallissaires.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & JEAN-MARC MONTERA - 'Union Of The Supreme Light'
2017 - LP + DL coupon / Digital (Starlight Furniture Co. / Revolver USA)

Full-color cover painting by Roberto Opalio gives the album its title. Old-style tip-on jacket with early ‘60s jazz design on the back, including photos, and liner notes by French critic and writer Philippe Robert. Includes free digital download.

Joining Maurizio and Roberto Opalio on their fourth album for Starlight Furniture Co., legendary French-Corsican guitarist and co-founder of Groupe de Recherche et d’Improvisation Musicales brings his noisy lyricism to three long tracks of oddly sensual and animalistic space howl. As their past collaborations attest, My Cat Is An Alien’s self-sustaining biosphere is an environment where the surreal dreamscapes of mavericks and eccentrics flourish. On this live recording, Jean-Marc Montera’s home-made guitar table, objects, and electronics forge metallic ribbons that twitch between the distant clangs of gigantic spores, while Maurizio (on home-made double-bodied string instrument and effects) and Roberto (on alientronics, effects, and modified electronic devices) set worms adrift in a zero-gravity aviary stocked with narcotized satsuma fowl. Roberto adds disorientation to the trio’s fog-blurred horizon with wordless vocalizations that could pass for billowing laments hooted by mutant sea mammals with enoki mushrooms growing on their larynxes.

“Since the late 1990s My Cat Is An Alien have successfully renewed a commitment to psychedelia as a revealing factor of the soul," says French critic and writer Philippe Robert. "Brothers Roberto and Maurizio Opalio’s interest in John Cage’s thought and in free improvisation is hardly a secret; hence the attraction toward architectures based on the concept of instantaneous composition, created from extended practices. In March 2015, serendipity brought together My Cat Is An Alien and guitarist Jean-Marc Montera in Marseille, for a concert where complicity manifested itself immediately, thanks to simpatico affinities (Montera in France is a pioneer of non-idiomatic improvisation) and encounters (among which we will just mention Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo). The trio set out for the beyond, in search of the Harmony of the Spheres, as they have, again and again". - PHILIPPE ROBERT, author of "Musiques Expèrimentales"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & NAD SPIRO - 'La Casa Encendida'
2017 - CS 60 (Sloow Tapes, Belgium)

Limited handmade edition of 100 copies.
Instantaneous composition performed and recorded live at La Casa Encendida in Madrid, April 29, 2012.
Unfolding galaxies of shooting stars slowed down to my speed. Another blast from the alien void.
Includes a spoken word introduction and text insert by Mk Ibañez.

Maurizio Opalio - self-made double-bodied string instrument, pedal effects, real-time loops
Roberto Opalio - wordless vocalizations, alientronics, pedal effects, modified electronic devices
Nad Spiro aka Rosa Arruti - electric guitar, fx pedals
MK Ibáñez - introVOX + text (Mess/Age.)


Artwork - acrylic painting and handwriting by Roberto Opalio. Layout by MCIAA

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - "RE-SI-STEN-ZA!"
2016 - Metallic Gold Wax color LP + DL card / Digital (Opax Records / Elliptical Noise)
OPX039

Private press edition. Gorgeous "Metallic Gold Wax" color LP limited to 300 copies. Jacket designed and handcrafted by MCIAA. Tri-fold sleeve in brown tobacco, textured fine art cardboard, with 12”x16” folded cover/insert. Includes antique map replica poster plus 3 special inserts on parchment paper with full credits, photographs, a foreword by Roberto Opalio, and a new MCIAA's portrait on Western Alps. Full-album Digital Download collector's card.

As foretaste of My Cat Is An Alien’s 20th anniversary in winter 2017-2018, their new LP "RE-SI-STEN-ZA!" well represents the summa of the duo's music activity, from their early space toys-era to the latest self-made electronics and string instruments outputs. Featuring two of the duo's longest compositions, the album reaches 50 minutes of NEW ALIEN MUSIC at highest analog quality, that My Cat Is An Alien claim to be "the complete communion between Alpha and Omega".
“RE-SI-STEN-ZA!” is a super limited two-track juggernaut […] The title track finds MCIAA at the height of their wiring and warping powers, an absolute wig flipped tour de force that sees them morphing through elements of noise, musique concrete, stoner earthbeat and cosmic spiritualism to craft out a truly immense and often brutal cranium collapsing palette of psychotropic goo which across 25 minutes of head tripping groove shapeshifts with such out there aplomb that you literally fear your mind might fry.” – MARK BARTON (The Sunday Experience)
"In 'Let Their Voices Speak Through The Wind', the voice becomes the key cornerstone of the instantaneous composition by transcending itself into a flux of infinite voices dislocated throughout the atemporal dimension of the Spheres, which float in the ether and permeate our physical bodies like “cosmic debris” lulled by the wind. Voices of ghosts that represent a blinding light within the deepest darkness of this more and more sad and lost Planet, and that leave a trace of beauty and existential meaning in our lives." - ROBERTO OPALIO (from liner notes)

Artwork by MCIAA.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & JOËLLE VINCIARELLI > ETERNAL BEYOND >
2016 - Marble Stone color LP + DL card / Digital (Opax Records / Arsenic Solaris / Up Against The Wall, Motherfuckers!)
OPX038 / AS-006 / UATWM 007

Limited edition of 300. Special "Marble Stone" color vinyl. Lavishly glossy printed jacket, with artwork by MCIAA. The "Eternal Stone" features on front cover, hold by Roberto Opalio's shamanic hands. 50 minutes of music at highest analog quality. Includes extended foreword by music critic and writer PHILIPPE ROBERT. Full-album Digital Download collector's card.

> ETERNAL BEYOND > is a collaborative project set up by brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio aka MY CAT IS AN ALIEN (MCIAA) and JOËLLE VINCIARELLI (Talweg, La Morte Young). All began in Spring 2015, when outsider instantaneous composers MCIAA traced a new magic triangle on a map between their hometown Torino, their current “Alien Zone” secret base in Western Alps, and the mysterious area over Nice’s hills known as Le Village Nègre. Not far from there, in the small and private recording studio of French underground queen Joëlle Vinciarelli, MCIAA recorded and produced a long session of instantaneous compositions where the duo’s otherwordly sounds and Roberto’s eerie wordless vocals melted with Vinciarelli’s unique, underwordly voice. An antique upright piano soundboard, self-made wooden string instruments, modified electronic devices, an old pendulum clock mechanism, bells and an old trumpet were played during the 4-day recording session. The result, purposely bypassing the present, builds a bridge between the archaic and the future, leading the way to what can only be defined as a groundbreaking > ETERNAL BEYOND >.

Tracklist:
1. > ETERNAL BEYOND - PRELUDIO >
2. > ETERNAL MARRIAGE OF HEAVEN AND HELL >
3. > ETERNAL ALBERT AYLER >
4. > ETERNAL ECLIPSE DU SOLEIL >
5. > ETERNAL BEYOND - POSTLUDIO >

Artwork by MCIAA. Photo by Maurizio Opalio, hands courtesy of shaman Roberto Opalio

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / GELBA - TAPE CRASH SERIES #15
2016 - C45 Cassette (Old Bicycle Records / CH)
OBR033

The Tape Crash series comes to an end with the fifteenth split between two Italian projects among the most intriguing in years.
MCIAA has just come of age (the debut was in 1998) and the team created by Opalio brothers managed to build over the years with productions in own and a sound partnership peculiarities making them increasingly valuable over time, like a dust alien among the dross of a psychedelic staff.
Gelba is the creature of Mazzani Michele and Matteo Poggi, Italian subversive in various music fields, including black metal, drones, psychedelia and artistic fury. A final right for a deliberately boundless necklace, with an exceptional artwork by Alberto Brunello.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN (Side A) – "The Revenge Of The Fallen Star"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'The Dance Of Oneirism'
2015 - 2xLP + ARTBOOK / Digital (Backwards)
BW19

- STANDARD EDITION - LTD ED of 300 copies. 3-Sided LP. Black vinyl. Silver, Blue and White screenprinted vinyl on SIDE D. Comes with a 24 pages Art Book & poem postcard by ROBERTO OPALIO, plus foreword insert by DAVID KEENAN.

- DELUXE EDITION - LTD ED of 80 copies. 3-Sided LP. LP 1 on COLOR vinyl, LP 2 on black vinyl. SIDE D screenprinted in COPPER. Comes with a 24 pages Art Book & poem postcard by ROBERTO OPALIO, plus foreword insert by DAVID KEENAN.

- ART BOX EDITION - Limited to 21 copies. Comes in copper screenprinted BOX set & handmade insert signed and numbered by ROBERTO OPALIO. Contains the DELUXE EDITION of the album.

- ART BOOK - The 24-pages Art Book & poem postcard by ROBERTO OPALIO is also available separately, in an edition of 50 exemplars, signed by the artist.

NEW My Cat Is An Alien studio double album!
From the extended foreword insert by David Keenan: "The central fact of MCIAA’s music has always been space but they have never sounded quite so far away, so removed. [...] The music is extremely sensual. The rhythms have a contrary cold/organic quality to them, the feel of the pulse as the breath is held, but soon even that dies down and we are left with an extended, timeless moment, the space between one breath and the next. Occasionally there is the sound of strings, strange steel resonances that populate the music like ghosts, the ghosts of Roscoe Holcomb’s high, lonesome sound, of Dock Boggs and the sanctified steel of Washington Phillips. Ash Ra Tempel met Timothy Leary in the Alps [...] The transmissions are fuzzy up here and at points it makes for a music of almost terrifying quiet. It is minimal, sure, but MCIAA are not so much interested in repetition as in eternal expansion. [...] The Dance Of Oneirism is a music of unknowing, a dance with a phantom, the letting go of a dream. It is MCIAA’s greatest long form work. It has tributaries that run deep into the past, ghost channels that facilitate two-way travel, even as its destination, in the words of the late Conrad Schnitzler, is determinedly future, future, future." - DAVID KEENAN

VVAA - THE WIRE TAPPER # 37
2015 - magazine + CD comp (THE WIRE MAGAZINE, issue #374, April 2015)

The latest volume in THE WIRE magazine's series of experimental and underground music compilations featuring 20 new, rare or unreleased tracks.

My Cat Is An Alien contribute:
“The Dance Of Oneirism #3 (excerpt)”

From 'The Dance Of Oneirism' 3-sided LP (Backwards)

Brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio formed My Cat Is An Alien in late 1997 and have since collaborated with Christian Marclay, Keiji Haino, Michael Morley, Jim O’Rourke, Mats Gustafsson, Sonic Youth and Savage Pencil among others. After reshaping their sound with self-made string instruments and reassembled electronic devices, MCIAA’s music has recently incorporated trance-like electronic beats. Their new album The Dance Of Oneirism is released this month by Backwards.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & JUPPALA KAAPIO - 'Black Blossom'
2014 - CD-R / Digital (Omnimemento)
OM14

Cover: Mirror coated paper, Various card stocks, Hand printed silk-screen
Limited 50 copies (numbered on a card)

__________________________________________________________
2014 - C45 Cassette (Neurec / Japan)
Cover: Japanese paper, Inkjet print, P-case
Limited 100 copies (1st edition: 45 copies)

"The vibrations from the stars are collected in their hands, embraced until becoming small crystals.
The lucid drops are poured into an amber stream, traveling with sundry minerals, then finally delivered to the eternal space.
Gigantic black petals are foamed by the enriched vibrations. The gradual blooming makes the endless darkness trembles.
The pollens have finally returned to the origin, and the flickers are waiting for the moment to be implanted in your imagination."
- Hitoshi Kojo, November 2014

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & CÉDRIC STEVENS - 'Abstract Expressionism For The Ears'
2014 - 3xLP + DL coupon (Opax Records)
OPX037

Housed in heavy duty full color laminated jacket. Includes Digital Download card of entire album. Limited to only 300 copies. Artwork and all titles curated by visual artist Roberto Opalio.

Debut release of the new collaborative project of outsider duo of musicians and visual artists MY CAT IS AN ALIEN and Belgian electronic composer CÉDRIC STEVENS. Over 2 hours of new music as human ears have never heard before and will never do if you miss this unique chance! --
In February 2014 brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio aka My Cat Is An Alien spent a residency in Brussels for a long studio session in trio with Cédric Stevens (aka Acid Kirk), who recently collaborated in Fennesz's new album. With the support of La Communauté Française De Belgique the entire session is now available in its entirety on MCIAA’s legendary Opax Records, in the form of this colossal triple LP set entitled 'Abstract Expressionism For The Ears'. The session is made of long-form pieces instantaneously composed, recorded and mixed by the trio during those incredibly intense days and nights of recordings.
Dreamy architectures of sounds, floating sculptures of abstract drones and cannibal noise, modal piano, ancestral strings and electronic futurism, celestial music of the Spheres, imbued with impressive textures of vocal exorcisms by Roberto Opalio. Again your ears won’t find any point of reference when listening to this transcendent and essential work!
Instantaneously composed, performed and produced by My Cat Is An Alien & Cédric Stevens. Roberto Opalio: wordless vocalizations, alientronics, pedal effects, electronic devices, vertical piano; Maurizio Opalio: self-made string instrument, pedal effects, cymbal, piano strings, Roberto’s piano real-time loops; Cédric Stevens: electric guitar, analogue modular system, minimoog, various analogue pedals.
Tracklisting:
Side A. Tasting The New Ether (22:25)
Side B. Intersection Of Shadows (25:04)
Side C. When The Sun Goes Down There’s Nothing Left To Tune - part I (19:14)
Side D. When The Sun Goes Down There’s Nothing Left To Tune - part II (17:31)
Side E. Shifting At Zero Gravity (25:02)
Side F-1. The Ineffable Call Of Tomorrow (14:46)
Side F-2. Just A Tone Of White Over Blue (4:36)

My Cat Is An Alien is the duo formed by outsider artists Maurizio and Roberto Opalio. After 16 years of intense activity, more than 100 albums released by prestigious labels worldwide (Ecstatic Peace!, Atavistic, Important, Eclipse, Starlight Furniture Co., Very Friendly/Cargo), collaborations with luminaries such as Christian Marclay, Jim O'Rourke, Thurston Moore, Nels Cline, Mats Gustafsson, Lee Ranaldo, Keiji Haino to name just a few, they also appeared on the cover of The Wire magazine.
"Roberto and Maurizio use their weird arsenal of homemade instruments and detourned toys to create an absolute monolith of abstract psychedelia. Simultaneously nightmarish, overwhelming, and inspired, My Cat is an Alien have concocted an epic, brain-frying bad trip like no else before." BRAINWASHED

ROBERTO OPALIO - 'Aurora Coelestis'
2014 - LP + DL coupon (Opax Records)
OPX036

Fourth soloist album and debut on vinyl format by musician and visual artist ROBERTO OPALIO of radical avant-garde duo My Cat Is An Alien. ‘Aurora Coelestis’ presents two new instantaneous compositions for glockenspiel and voice, recorded in March 2014 at his Alien Studio for audiovisual arts, Torino, Italy. For the first time his musical work is mainly instrumental: ‘Aurora Coelestis’ is Roberto Opalio’s homage to early minimalism. The work is intended to be listened to at soft volume level, quietly in a room. The same glockenspiel used in the recording has then been cut into pieces to become the core of the spectacular art gallery edition of the album.

“Roberto Opalio, the more sinister half of My Cat Is An Alien, has finally released a non-lathe solo LP in order to demonstrate his mastery of space junk. The two parts of the title track, “Aurora Coelestis”, are incredible glides through the darkest recesses of solar system. The music was created on glockenspiel, then run through Roberto's homemade electronics in a way that extends celestial glimmering into eruptive plains of infinity. Cosmic burbles worthy of Gong mix with expansive tones that make me think of what Richard Brautigan's Machines of Loving Grace might sound like. It's almost the same as listening to one of those computers that generates sounds from stellar radiation. Beautiful, cold and deep. It will make all of your bones feel very soft.
The third piece, “Hic et Nunc” is a piece for manipulated vocals. The title is Latin for “Here and Now” and may refer to either the Gong-related UK band of the '70s, or the impermanence of language, or both. The music is like being sucked through a long tube that lights up and resonates as you pass along sections of it. Alien lips quiver nearby and you can smell a kind of breath you have never smelled before. It's a wonderful trip through bubble time, and one suspects it would be an excellent soundtrack for your next bout with hallucinogens. If that's not your thing, just lie down in the dark and concentrate hard on the sounds. You'll be flying soon enough. Have a nice ride.” –BYRON COLEY, 2014

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'PSYCHO-SYSTEM'
2013 - 6CD Box Set + DL (Elliptical Noise / Canada)
alphaomega6571-76CD

My Cat Is An Alien’s most extreme work to date. The most advanced expression of their current creative method of composition through the brothers' brand new self-made strings and electronic instrumentation.

PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM
PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM PSYCHO-SYSTEM

!!! WARNING !!! prolonged exposure to sounds and high volume listening can cause episodes of psychotic break with reality, hallucinations, schizophrenia, bipolar disorders, catatonia.

It is recommended to relax and enjoy the Psycho-System experience.

The BOX comes with full-color artwork, extensive liner notes and credits, plus 2 exclusive art cards; every box contains a download coupon of entire work.
WATCH the official trailer here

Tracklist:

Disc 1 | "PSYCHO-SYSTEM #1 - Hallucination"

Disc 2 | "PSYCHO-SYSTEM #2 - Catatonia"

Disc 3 | "PSYCHO-SYSTEM #3 - Delirium"

Disc 4 | "PSYCHO-SYSTEM #4 - Catharsis"

Disc 5 | "PSYCHO-SYSTEM #5 - Bipolarism"

Disc 6 | "PSYCHO-SYSTEM #6 - Enlightenment"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN with NELS CLINE- 'The Ocean Above Your Heads'
2013 - LP (Starlight Furniture Co. / Revolver USA)
*26

Limited edition vinyl LP in super deluxe, full-colour printed jacket, featuring cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

The idea of a recording collaboration by Nels Cline and My Cat Is An Alien was born one day in Torino, Italy, while Cline was touring with Wilco in 2007. After two other intersections of their respective orbits (first at Victoriaville, then at a UK All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in 2006), Cline eventually mailed them a CDR of prepared and heavily effected electric guitar improvisations, recorded in a small studio in Los Angeles. He tossed them off with little concern about exactly what would happen to the recordings, though his familiarity with i fratelli Opalio and their work steered the technically proficient jams familiar to fans of Nels Cline Singers, Scarnella or L. Stinkbug deep into zones of space noise, bold cosmic disruptions and nattering squibs from decommissioned satellites.

Exploiting the carte blanche they were given to do whatever they wanted with his recordings, Maurizio and Roberto Opalio opted to maintain as much as possible the spirit of free improv and instantaneous composition; Cline’s recording remained unheard until the actual recording session in 2012. Upon recognizing the planets were in proper alignment, Roberto and Maurizio’s Alien Zone studio in the Western Alps vibrated with the first playback of the CDR and My Cat Is An Alien’s simultaneous real-time accompaniment, without overdubs or outtakes. 

The results throb like an Argento soundtrack for an astral perv lair, recalling vintage cassette gorp from the golden age of industrial, when field recordings of howling dogs were repurposed as documents of institutional degradation and mind control. Dusted with loops from a lunar cathedral where palsied zombies dragging pots and pans skid across the soap-slathered narthex, The Ocean Above Your Heads splays the hemispheres better than Subotnik goin’ off his meds. (label info)

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Alien, All Too Alien'
2013 - LP + DL (Trensmat Records / Ireland)
TR37

VERY limited edition coloured vinyl LP in colour heavy card sleeve. Featuring artwork by Roberto Opalio.

"Their cat may well be all too alien but there's quite an earthly feel to this epic voyage of a record from the brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio. It feels like you are slowly drifting through different continents perched on a floating glass-domed steel barge, observing the strangely contrasting cultures go about their business, seemingly unaware they are being watched.

Though there are certain sounds contained herein that are quite familiar to many 21st century homosapiens, much of the content is wildly skewed and disorientating. Maybe this is a (heavily medicated) alien's impression of earth? See? This place isn't so bad - call off the invasion guys, MCIAA will take you to their dealer. And their dealer, it would seem, is a muse that still fires up the siblings enough to produce an enthralling LP such as this despite umpteen scores of releases and side-projects since the late 90s.

Multi-layered hums and whirrs are punctuated and punctured with all manner of exotic percussion, twanging strings, quaintly retro synthetic bloops, lonesome harmonica, and human babble. Your focus will no doubt shift between the different levels of activity, often leaving you wondering when a particular sonic strand you had previously been following actually ceased - and just how long exactly has that guitar strumming been going on!? These hyper-prolific brothers from Turin shroud each transition with unearthly skill.

There are two side-long trips you can take - preferably in the order they were intended - though guaranteed there will be several hundred details you will have missed, ensuring a prolonged stint on the turntable.
So, give a knock on the dome and pull up a captain's chair beside your green-hued travel companion and see your world through different (bug-)eyes.." (Trensmat)

*NOTE: An intentional locked groove was placed after A1 to bring the listener's mind to reflect on the sense of the "Preludio" the stylus will be locked after A1 until the listener moves it manually to A2 (the proper beginning of the work)

>> LISTEN >>

'ALIENACUSTICA' is a superb collection of works by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien) as you have never heard before. Forget all MCIAA's noise records... this is a totally different affair: starting from January 2006 they have released 3 unusual, completely acoustic works, all in limited and sold-out editions: a soloist split lp, a private art edition cd-r, and an out-of-print cd. The different approach to these works shows another side of the Opalio brothers' musical universe: all of the electric guitars and electronic effects that have been characterizing My Cat Is An Alien from the beginning are here left aside to give space to classical and acoustic guitar strings, and to Roberto's "human" voice as a primordial instrument.
Indeed, they decided to collect these precious gems under the pseudonym of BROTHERS FROM ANOTHER SPACE, so to point out how much these works are "alien" to the rest of their immense corpus of work.
Within this triple box set it reigns the celestial harmony of the same matter their beloved Western Alps are made of, as it comes out from the recordings themselves (most of which made in Spring), sometimes hiding the surrounding nature's sounds, like birds singing through the leafy branches of the trees outside the brothers' Alien Zone studio, as well as the creaking of their HQs' wood floor echoing inside their acoustic guitar bodies, the whole creating a really unique atmosphere.
Cover artwork - drawing by Roberto Opalio.

DISC 1 - ROBERTO OPALIO / MAURIZIO OPALIO 'In The Middle Of The Air / Glacier Sommeiller'
DISC 2 - MAURIZIO & ROBERTO OPALIO 'Liquid Spring'
DISC 3 - MY CAT IS AN ALIEN 'Folclore Alieno'

>> LISTEN >>

This is the official debut of the Opalio brothers' new project called MUSIC FOR PHANTOMS. It is a totally acoustic and a very ambitious project dedicated to "total quietness", recorded in the mountains and ONLY during the night. This is the most haunted music you can ever imagine, created playing exclusively wooden instruments: a classical guitar, and an acoustic guitar; all instrumental. This music makes you taste the distant echoes coming from the other side. Nothing can be more true. In November 2007 Maurizio and Roberto Opalio released the first album of this collection (entitled 'I') as a private press art edition cd-r of only 99 copies. On April 28 and July 20, 2010, they recorded the following two albums ('II' and 'III'), presented for the first time in this triple box set.

"music for phantoms is the thin curtain which permeates your neurons_music for phantoms is the numbness of the fog that holds you with its silver fluxus_music for phantoms is the whisper of the promised first snow_music for phantoms is the atonal sing-song of the branches soaked with memory reverbered by the wind_music for phantoms is the view through the praxinoscope of the Great Void_music for phantoms is the murmur of the golden leaves stripped by the agony of the autumn sun_music for phantoms is the pure vivid white light as itself that does not mind to show its necessity to the world_music for phantoms is everything shining beyond space and time_music for phantoms is the shadow of the instant just sacrified in its becoming_music for phantoms is the consciousness of the senselessness of what comes afterwards_music for phantoms is the limbo between this and the other dimension_music for phantoms is the blinding darkness coming from a dying flame while a new light is yet to be found over a less and less definite horizon". - Roberto Opalio

Cover artwork - b/w film photographs by Roberto Opalio

"Another rewarding sonic step into new territory from the Opalio brothers. Superb and atmospheric, a pagan ceremony to welcome winter in a forest, dancing between the unknown strange states of mind, haunted and compelling through out" (Musique Machine)

PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST - 'Transparent Winter'
2012 - CD (Silentes / Seven Solar Metals / Italy)
Season Two

After the enthusiastically acclaimed release on Tokyo's legendary P.S.F. label, hailed as a return to the ancient spirit of Japanese national poetry, PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST simply demonstrate there's anything else like their music around the world right now. The trio of Ramona Ponzini (Praxinoscope, Z'ev, Black Magic Disco) with Roberto & Maurizio Opalio (aka My Cat Is An Alien) returns on planet Earth for a new full length release of extended songs. PPOPG create some wonderfully fragile and unusual experiments that fall somewhere between folk, psychedelia and drone. Ramona Ponzini sings in Japanese as well as contributing furin, metal and wooden Japanese wind chimes. These are combined with Maurizio Opalio on acoustic guitar, and Roberto Opalio on mini keyboard, bodhran, alientronics, and wordless vocalizations. The trio's eclectic setup helps them create some truly luscious and mysterious music that is perfectly fragile, strange, distant and delicate.
You already had a little taste of the work in October 2011, when Blackest Rainbow Records released a limited and now sold-out LP edition featuring 2 tracks of the album ('Mars Appears' and 'The Mountain'), presented here in an alternate mix version. This CD contains the whole recording session of the work entitled 'Transparent Winter', including 33 minutes of previously unreleased material ('Notes From A Telephone Conversation', 'Winter Is Coming', 'Ochitsubaki'), plus a bonus ghost track, for a total of 80 minutes of entranced music! While the short, final track 'Ochitsubaki' is still inspired by Yosano Akiko's poetic work, the entire rest of the work features lyrics excerpts from Takamura Kotaro's poems carefully selected by Ramona Ponzini.

"Otherworldly is maybe the most apt description for their fragile, distanced songcraft, compositions which transport us to liminal fantasy spaces of gently suspenseful psychedelia, strangely inviting and comforting trance-like states". (Boomkat)

CÉDRIC STEVENS / + remixes by FENNESZ, LEYLAND KIRBY, MY CAT IS AN ALIEN, BURNING STAR CORE, MOTION SICKNESS OF TIME TRAVEL, SYLVAIN CHAVEAU
'The Syncopated Elevators Legacy'
2012 - 2LP (Discrepant / UK)
CREP03

Limited edition of 500 on 180g vinyl housed in double gatefold jacket.
Discrepant Records collect nine highlights of Cédric Stevens' oeuvre 1997-2005, backed with new and exclusive revisions by Leyland Kirby, Burning Star Core, Fennesz, Motion Sickness Of Time Travel, Sylvain Chaveau and My Cat Is An Alien. Whilst he's best recognised to raving throngs as Acid Kirk, Cédric Stevens most intriguing music was made on analogue modular systems under the now defunct Syncopated Elevators Legacy moniker and released on his own Elf Cut imprint and Ambivalence recordings from his native Belgium. These recordings are very much "of their time", twisting the established contours of early-mid '90s ambient and experimental electronics with a keener psychedelic edge reminding of certain moments from Jim O'Rourke and early Fennesz, arranging abstract and elusive sounds with intricate, weaving structures and a taste for sweetly soured synthetic dissonance. The album of remixes update and diverge his original material in myriad ways. An excellent collection - and a killer set of remixes.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN contribute a 11 minutes remix / reflection on 'The Siamese Level (Playground Emulation)'

PRAXINOSCOPE - 'Inward Eye'
2012 - LP (Lost Treasures Of The Underworld / USA)
LTLP10

The edition is limited to 287 and vinyl comes in three different colors: marble orange, marble white, and black. The record is housed in a 12" cloth bag, with front, back and inner fully screen-printed with artwork reproducing a painting by Roberto Opalio. Secret messages are written between the grooves and both sides' center labels, that feature mysterious, full-color portraits of Ramona and Roberto respectively on each side. Each copy hand-numbered and hand-stamped, reporting the exact date of printing .

Ramona Ponzini (Japanese bells & wind chimes, shion, vocals); Roberto Opalio (vocalizations, all effects, mini-keyboard, bodhran drum).

'INWARD EYE' is the fourth album by PRAXINOSCOPE, recorded by Roberto Opalio at My Cat Is An Alien's private studio in Western Alps, during the long cold winter 2008. The work, investigated by Ken Hollings while writing MCIAA's cover article for the Wire, was therein presented: "As if powered by primordial forces, MCIAA's homemade universe continues to expand. You get the impression they really do dedicate all their time to their art. More ambitious still are their collaborations with Ramona Ponzini, who was for many years MCIAA's manager before she took up a full-time study of Japanese language and poetry at the university in Turin. Either working with both brothers as Painting Petals On Planet Ghost or with Roberto alone as PRAXINOSCOPE, Ramona brings a refined physicality to MCIAA's alien cosmology. Her study of Japanese literature from the Heian Period, which corresponds roughly to the European Middle Ages, relates closely to their preoccupations with change and disappearance. 'INWARD EYE' brings this connection closer still." (Ken Hollings, The Wire).
Here's an excerpt conversation from the interview:
RAMONA: "Concerning Praxinoscope, I think Roberto and I interact in a very violent and savage way."
ROBERTO: "This is very funny, I was just explaining that you and I recorded it when we were alone in the mountains during the winter, when there were walls of snow around the studio. I described our session as very quiet, like a sort of meditation, and now you use the word 'violent'."
RAMONA: "Because I'm describing what I'm feeling inside of me. Maybe something that sublimates violence can appear quiet."
ROBERTO: "I agree"

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Living on the Invisible Line'
2011 - LP / DL (Divorce Records / Canada)
D38

Since 1997 Italian brother duo My Cat Is An Alien has been documenting an ever deepening musical dreamscape, their massive body of work representing some of the most emotive and soulful improvised experimentalism in underground music. Recorded in a remote region of the Western Alps, this latest LP navigates especially tranquil territory as it builds blissed-out pastoral mirages, dappled just slightly with glimmers of an outer darkness. Like much of the duo's best work, Living On the Invisible Line aims for transcendence, leaving behind only spinning heads and zoned souls. Edition of 500. Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST - 'Transparent Winter'
2011 - LP (Blackest Rainbow Records / UK)
BRR220

'Transparent Winter' follows on from the debut release on the always excellent Time-Lag label and the latest, enthusiastically acclaimed CD on Tokyo's legendary P.S.F. records. Painting Petals On Planet Ghost is the trio of Ramona Ponzini with Roberto & Maurizio Opalio (aka My Cat Is An Alien). Here they return for a new full length vinyl release on Blackest Rainbow. PPOPG create some wonderfully fragile and unusual experiments that fall somewhere between folk, psychedelia and drone. Ramono Ponzini sings in Japanese as well as contributing 'furin, metal and wooden japanese wind chimes'. These are combined with Maurizio Opalio on acoustic guitar, and Roberto Opalio on 'mini keyboard, bodhran, alientronics, and wordless vocalizations'. The trio's eclectic setup helps them create some truly luscious and mysterious music that is perfectly fragile, strange, distant and delicate. 'Mars Appears' is a hazy dream piece with layered guitars, strange electronics and Ramono's perfectly delivered Japanese vocals drawing the listener in surrounded by a strange but perfect fitting created by the Opalio brothers musical output. 'The Mountain' is equally as otherworldy as the previous sides track, with swirling strings and out of this world electronics created by Roberto and Maurizio. Whilst Ramona's vocal are almost delivered in a trance like state. A extremely beautiful record with a gorgeous organic feel to it. The record is housed in a sleeve featuring film photographs of flowers.
Edition of 250 copies pressed on 140gram virgin vinyl.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'ALIENOLOGY: Selected Works 1998-2008'
2011 - 10CD BOX (Elliptical Noise / Canada)
alphaomega6555-64CD

Stunning collection of works from 1998 to 2008, MY CAT IS AN ALIEN's first decade of adventure in outer space and modern music. All ultra-rare and long-out-of-print material from space brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio finally available for the first time in digital format, including a previously unreleased gem entitled 'Where The Lines Go To Sleep' (2004).
Starting from MY CAT IS AN ALIEN's 1999 first milestone 'Landscapes Of An Electric City' (originally spread throughout the world by Thurston Moore's Ecstatic Peace!), as asserted by Roberto Opalio in this excerpt from his original written introduction: "one day observing my polaroids of Torino we decided to devote to it an alien improvisation for only two guitars in order to represent the bare essence / sublimation of the metropolitan soul the way we feel it inside of us - [..] one morning we went around the city to record on tape 15 minutes of real sounds = the actual voice of the city and the next day under a dull and rainy sky we went into the studio to devastate and we seized our hollering guitars + we made mental contact with the aliens and boosted our amplifiers to the max while out of focus images of my alien slides were being projected on a wall - the result is all here on this disc where we feel the presence of Torino with its static electricity and the holler and hush which permeate from beginning to end every single shattered sound - [..] (October 1st, 1999)"
In these early years, MY CAT IS AN ALIEN decided to entrust thier own 'pictures of infinity' to several obscure labels specialized in producing limited as well as specially curated vinyl-only releases (not to mention the duo's own Opax Records imprint), thus creating a monumental corpus of work that gave birth to the brothers' myth. Though sometimes causing a bit of difficulty in finding these titles easily, on the other hand their choice made many vinyl-lovers and collectors' joy for sure.
Among many other fundamental works, this huge set also contains what MY CAT IS AN ALIEN have called 'The Great Void Trilogy', which was originally released on three separate LPs by Ed Hardy's legendary Eclipse Records in the middle of the last decade. The latest work presented in the set is 'Alien Blood' (2008), original soundtrack to the homonimous film by Roberto Opalio, which was shown at various European museums as part of the 'SONIC YOUTH etc: Sensational Fix' touring exhibition.
Each work has been accurately remastered and re-edited appositely for this box set release. The box also includes extensive liner notes, plus special art cards.
A unique occasion for every adventurous listener to experience some of the most inscrutable and essential music of all times.
Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

DISC 1 - 'Landscapes Of An Electric City'
DISC 2 - 'The Rest Is Silence' (part one)
DISC 3 - 'The Rest Is Silence' (part two - extended version)
DISC 4 - 'When The Windmill's Whirl Dies'
DISC 5 - 'There's A Flame___Sometimes'
DISC 6 - 'Into The White Vortex' / 'Where The Lines Go To Sleep' (previously unreleased)
DISC 7 - 'Greetings From The Great Void'
DISC 8 - 'The Secret Of The Dancing Snow'
DISC 9 - 'For The Tears Of The Land_Prayers From The Outer Space'
DISC 10 - 'Alien Blood - Soundtrack To The Film'

VVAA - THE WIRE TAPPER # 25
2011 - magazine + CD comp (THE WIRE MAGAZINE, issue #326, April 2011)

The latest volume in THE WIRE magazine's series of experimental and underground music compilations featuring 20 new, rare or unreleased tracks from Hana, Artifact Shore, Nicholas Szczepanik, Tchicai/Hurley/Sanders/Coxon and more.

My Cat Is An Alien contribute:
“The Antigravitational Sense Of Nothingness” (Wire Tapper alternate edit)

From 'What Space Is Made For' (Elliptical Noise)

Italian brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio work in a “secret base in the Western Alps”, where they have been making instant compositions, electronic music and audio-visual art since 1997. This track comes from their latest magnum opus, a triple box set.

>> view more
>> LISTEN >>

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'What Space Is Made For'
2011 - 3CD BOX (Elliptical Noise / Canada)
alphaomega6552-54CD

The monumental set 'What Space Is Made For' has been recorded in their secret base on the Western Alps, and unlike MCIAA's previous works, it's mostly made of short pieces and songs. In addition to their (un)usual instrumentation (electric and acoustic guitars, space toys, percussion), MCIAA have self-made, modified, and assembled / disassembled primitive electronic equipment. So the result may sound their most 'experimental' as well as their most 'accessible' work to date.

An alternate edit of the song 'The Antigravitational Sense Of Nothingness' is featured on the WIRE TAPPER 25 CD compilation, that comes attached to April 2011 issue of The Wire magazine.
The Box includes booklet with full liner notes, credits and an appositely written introduction to the work by Roberto Opalio, plus 6 full-color art cards.
Cover artwork - painting by Roberto Opalio.

"This triple box set is their latest magnum opus" - The Wire

>> Limited Art Edition of 20 copies

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / PRAXINOSCOPE - 'For the tears of the Land_Prayers from the outer space'
2011 - 2CD (Elliptical Noise/ Canada)
alphaomega6543-44CD

Double CD set collecting the two single CDs.
Cardboard jacket with paste-on artwork. Includes liner notes and full introduction by Roberto Opalio.

Elliptical Noise is proud to present this ambitious two-disc concept album; disc 1 by cosmic brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio aka My Cat Is An Alien, and disc 2 by Praxinoscope, Roberto's side project with long-time collaborator Ramona Ponzini (Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Black Magic Disco, Ankoku).

BBNU & MCIAA - 'GRAMOFONU = voice of the Universe'
2011 - LP (Opax Records / Love Nest / Czech Republic)
OPX034A/LN0003

Limited edition of 300 in pro-printed jackets, with exclusive cover art by Roberto Opalio. 90 copies come with an insert.

GRAMOFONU = voice of the Universe is the first meeting of two improvising acts, Prague-based turntable & 8mm band Birds Build Nests Underground and Italian psychedelic trubadours My Cat Is An Alien. Two different approaches to music make a sound that takes both from the unknown realms of the outer space and from the somehow-well-known world of old cracking records and the music and sounds on them.
Birds Build Nests Underground provided some of their live improvisations, My Cat Is An Alien then chose those close to their hearts and laced them with sounds of guitars, space toys & ray guns, wordless singing and alientronics. Never has music of the spheres crackled so nicely. As if the whole galaxy lies on a giant turntable…
The record starts with an exciting, extatic and excellent improvised speech by a Czech avantgarde poet Vítezslav Nezval who sees the whole world through his glass and the glass in the window of a recording studio.

>> Limited Art Edition of 20 copies

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN / RAMONA PONZINI / LEE RANALDO - 'All Is Lost In Translation'
2010 - CD (Atavistic, USA)
alp196CD

"Bella Italia avant garde meets Sonic-Youth guitar guru!
The Brothers Opalio return with their second collaborative album for Atavistic. This time
MY CAT IS AN ALIEN have teamed up with RAMONA PONZINI (vocals/Japanese percussion, and LEE RANALDO (guitars/bells/vocals) for a 2008 session, captured live in Verona, Italy. Like the extant MCIAA tapestry of international collaborations,
All Is Lost In Translation continues their spectacular latter-day exploration of the outer reaches, and further defines their well-earned role as alchemical auteur-artists." (label info)

Cover artwork - drawing by Roberto Opalio.

"Una compilación internacional que recoge el trabajo de 22 artistas de diversas partes del mundo, desde Perú hasta Japón, de Uruguay a España, de Italia a Costa Roca, de Nueva York a Argentina y de Canadá a la Luna. Todos importantes representantes de la experimentación sonora en la actualidad. El disco presenta exploraciones que van del noise psicodélico de guitarra, el industrial drone, y diversos acercamientos contemporáneos al sonido Kosmische. Rituales eternos de bulla sagrada. Sumamente intenso. Edición limitada de 300 copias en cdr. Portada de Athena Kargeui." Concepto y selección por Luis Alvarado. Arte de portada por Athena Kargeui.

Private Press Edition of 250 copies; multicolour vinyl housed in handmade heavy cardboard jacket with paste-on silver artwork, with 12" insert. A professionally pressed CDr is included as digital version of the album. A bonus DVDr region free containing a film by Roberto Opalio inspired by 'Fragments suspended in time - alba' comes with the first 100 copies.
Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

Second Edition: same multicolour vinyl housed in trifold cardboard jacket with paste-on silver artwork and insert. Digital Download coupon included.

"We're living our lives / like fragments / suspended in time" - Roberto Opalio

Perhaps Roberto's words are sufficient to explain the deep nature of the work. Anyway, it could be of a certain interest to know that this album comes after MCIAA spent a long period of self-isolation up in the Western Alps, far from everything and everyone but their own spirits.
Here the key is the development of melody and harmony; as quickly as you'll put the stylus on side A (called 'alba' = 'sunrise' side) you'll be overwhelmed by the delicate grace of its melodic texture, underlined by the intimate and never-before-so-sweet Roberto's wordless vocalizations.
Side B (called 'tramonto' = 'sunset' side) will increase more and more this antigravitational sweet mood, 'till you'll find yourself literally 'suspended in time'... For those who loved MCIAA's The Rest Is Silence masterpiece, this album is intended to be a great step in that direction as well as a great step beyond it. A final recommendation directly by the duo: "To you who follow the so-called 'avant metal' shit, to you who are slave of the trends of the moment, to you who think experimental music must be soulless, to you who consider music only as a mere entertainment while doing 'more important' things, to you who believe art is not poetry, please DON'T buy this LP! You won't like it the same way we don't like you!"

>> Limited Art Edition of 20 copies

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & BJERGA / IVERSEN - collab LP
2010 - LP (Gold Soundz / Ikuisuus) (LTD. 250 + special ed. bonus DVD-R)
GS#98 / IKU-025

"2 psyched-out sides from the mighty Aliens and Norways own answer to Hall & Oates - Bjerga/Iversen. These sides are boiled down from about 2+ hours worth of material recorded last summer in the stunning alpine village of Luserna san Giovanni, just outside of Torino, Italy.
Space electronics, weightless freestyle strings, buzzing voices from the outer heliospheres and garbled and warped messages from the great beyond handed down on recycled trashcan tapes.... celestial harmonies from a neon universe...
There was a double-exposed rainbow over the foot of the western alps this evening in late June, and you can hear the colors seeping through the cracks...
Both My Cat is an Alien and Bjerga/Iversen have extensive discographies and both units have collaborated a lot with others, as this is an important part of our musical universes. So we were all happy to work on these recordings together in a full-blown extensive and focused session.... The recordings are edited by MCIAA."

Edition of 250 copies in ultra-cool neon-colored silkscreened jackets, 5 different varieties.
Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.
** Special edition of 30 with a BONUS DVDR with extra video material **

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Photoelectric Season'
2010 - 2CD (Elliptical Noise)
alphaomega6549-50CD

"After a period of mystic retreat in a remote region of the Western Alps, MCIAA return with a brand new double album, one of their most innovative and mysterious to date. During six months of physical and psychic isolation, the Opalio brothers's unique plays have been Giacinto Scelsi, Erik Satie and Maki Asakawa, while they have chosen as their sole mates writers August Strindberg and Isidore Ducasse compte de Lautréamont. Few words can describe this new milestone in MCIAA's whole discography: archaic, arcane, psychically alienated, heartfelt. These are their new 'cosmic tones for mental therapy'. Gatefold cardboard jacket with tape binding and paste-on artwork, with insert.
Roberto Opalio: vocals, mini-keyboard, alientronix.
Maurizio Opalio: electric & acoustic guitars, ancient zither."

Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'Black Shadows from Jupiter, Vol. I & II'
2010 - 2CD (Elliptical Noise / Canada)
alphaomega6547-48CD

"Double CD featuring the previously unreleased 'stereo version' of Volume One, plus an entire second disc of new material presented here as Volume Two. 'Black Shadows from Jupiter, Volume I' was indeed issued in 2005 as one of the legendary and ultra-rare, private vinyl editions by Opalio brothers' own Opax Records imprint, pressed in 120 copies in 'Monalien Fidelity' - a clear reference/tribute to ESP's incredible 'monaural' sound recordings. Volume One consists of two long tracks, the very first music recorded by MCIAA after they moved to the new recording space located in the Western Alps, as well as the first experiments in Roberto Opalio's personal technique in the use of wordless vocals as a powerful musical instrument, which has since become one of the most original and distinctive elements of MCIAA's music, and that here can't but recall Tim Buckley's 'Starsailor' mood. Five years later, in October 2009, MCIAA decide to record almost one hour of completely new material to represent the follow-up, 'Black Shadows from Jupiter, Volume II', here all featured in Disc 2. The whole set represents the opportunity of a unique journey in the darkest secrets of the S-System."

Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

>> read reviews

ROBERTO OPALIO - 'The Hexagram on Grace'
2010 - CD (Elliptical Noise)
alphaomega6551CD

"Third soloist album by Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien, Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Praxinoscope). During the same period of self isolation in the Westrn Alps that brought to life MCIAA's 'Photoelectric Season' double album, Roberto conceived the creation of his new full-lenght album, inspired by the mystic aura of the nature surrounding himself. Focusing himself on his peculiar wordless vocalizations, and using simply a mini-keyboard and his prepared 'alientronics' as instruments, Roberto has built soundscapes of sublime abstract expressionism around the 'heliocentricity' of his voice. This is a true 'hexagram on grace' indeed. Cardboard jacket with paste-on artwork, with insert.
Roberto Opalio: vocals, mini-keyboard, alientronix. Featuring Maurizio Opalio on acoustic guitar at the beginning of 'Like an empty glass'"

Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

Amazing work of quiet contemplation on acoustic & classical guitars by Maurizio and Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien), with Roberto's disembodied vocals levitating high above like a cosmic breath.

This is the rare document of a late-night session set up by Maurizio & Roberto Opalio (My Cat Is An Alien) and Ramona Ponzini (Praxinoscope, Painting Petals On Planet Ghost), featuring an obscure ensemble of radical folk musicians of the Western Alps. The instrument that have been played in this album range from classical & acoustic guitars to early 1800s homemade wooden string instruments, belonging to the rural tradition of the region.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - 'For the tears of the Land_Prayers from the outer space - Vol.1'
2009 - CD (Elliptical Noise / Canada)
alphaomega6543CD

PRAXINOSCOPE - 'For the tears of the Land_Prayers from the outer space - Vol.2'
2009 - CD (Elliptical Noise)
alphaomega6544CD

Elliptical Noise is proud to present this ambitious two-volume concept album; Vol.1 by cosmic brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio aka My Cat Is An Alien, and Vol.2 by Praxinoscope, Roberto's side project with long-time collaborator Ramona Ponzini (Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Black Magic Disco, Z'ev). Here the introduction to both CDs by Roberto himself: "This work shows an apparently new side of My Cat Is An Alien, but be careful not to be deceived. I just believe that what was already inborn appeared more vivid and explicit at a certain point. One day we realized it was no more possible to discern archaic art and post-modern art in our palette; it was clear that they were both reflected in the same hall of mirrors, which our whole aesthetics has always been inclined to, continuosly escaping from and returning to it, everytime re-confirming its own essence. In other words, alien art and archaic art are the same thing. Volume 1 starts with an acoustic blues performed by myself, dedicated to the pioneers of the American primitive music and in particular to the spirit of Charley Patton, which was psychically obsessing me at the moment of creation - Charley, this is for you! - And Volume 2 ends with a Praxinoscope's piece of total cosmic blast... and of archaic transcendence. In fact all archaic art deals with death, sex, transcendence and Eternity. Anyone who does not look from this perspective cannot understand and appreciate contemporary art, even less pretend to use the term 'avant-garde' without exposing oneself to ridicule. We're all living days suspended in the Void. The difference is in consciousness: this is real artists' duty. Beyond and other than this, only oblivion." (Roberto Opalio - May 18th, 2007).

Cover artwork by Roberto Opalio.

MOONMILK / MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - "Paseridae I"
2009 - split 7" (Sound & Fury)
(Ltd. 100 in pale blue vinyl / Ltd. 200 in black; hand-silkscreened, 100% recycled chipboard sleeves)

The first volume in a new series of split 7" singles on Australia's Sound & Fury label, featuring new and exclusive tracks from Sydney drone duo Moonmilk & space travellers My Cat Is An Alien. The whole series, pairing Astralian artists with oversea ones features BROTHERS OF THE OCCULT SISTERHOOD, STARVING WEIRDOS, SCISSOR LOCK, JASPER TX, ADRIAN KLUMPES, MACHINEFABRIEK, HEIL SPIRITS, THE NORTH SEA, SEAWORTHY, TARENTEL, ZELIENOPLE, SHOEB AHMAHD, LIBRARY TAPES, M.RÖSNER, ANTONY MILTON, ANONYMEYE, THURSTON MOORE

My Cat Is An Alien play 'diatomic molecules' (4:30)
Moonmilk play 'my mother in colours' (4:36)

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN, MICHAEL MORLEY, RAMONA PONZINI, LEE RANALDO - 'Live @ Sensational Fix'
2009 - LP (Starlight Furniture Co.)
ST25

On June 17, 2008, the exhibition Sonic Youth etc.: Sensational Fix opened at LiFE in Saint-Nazaire, France. As part of the exhibition project, My Cat Is An Alien performed on stage with their long-time collaborator Ramona Ponzini (Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, Black Magic Disco, Z'ev) singing Japanese, Michael Morley (Dead C, Gate) and Lee Ranaldo of Sonic Youth.
Side B features a collection of solo pieces by each of the five members of this extemporaneous ensemble. The perfect compendium to the unicity of this historical document. (Starlight)

Cover art - polaroid photos by Roberto Opalio, form his "On-Stage Live Action Series".

Exhibition curator Roland Groenenboom recalls: "Michael Morley joined My Cat Is An Alien and Ramona Ponzini on stage for an improv piece. They were already way into developing it when, to their surprise, Lee Ranaldo picked up the guitar that Maurizio had left lying on stage when he moved on to playing percussion, which only made the already phenomenal sonic achievement even denser." >> read more

PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST - 'Haru no omoi'
2009 - CD (PSF Records / Japan)
PSFD-190

"Ramona Ponzini, young vocalist of Italian PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST, marvellously gave new life to the precious soul of Japan - the soul that contemporary Japan has lost these days." PSF Records - Tokyo

Haru No Omoi is the third full length release from Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, the project of My Cat Is An Alien's Maurizio and Roberto Opalio featuring Ramona Ponzini (Black Magic Disco, Praxinoscope) on vocals. The MCIAA duo provide expertly restrained accompaniment with guitar, keyboard, and percussion of the spacious gong/cymbal/bell variety to create a minimalist realm for Ponzini's Japanese singing and spoken word that is all together captivating. This is an album of sparse, hypnotic folk and subtle drone, but it inhabits a galaxy containing a warmth and richness in detail quite unlike anything else the Opalios have laid their hands on. Track two, 'Sakura No Hana No Oto Ga Kikoeru,' is a variation (or maybe the same exact version?) of the same song featured on the band's stunning 2005 self-titled debut release on Time-Lag. Housed in a heavy mini-gatefold sleeve. "Every track recorded in a different mystic location of the Western Alps, Piedmont, Italy between winter 2004, early fall 2006 and January 2009."
Selection of all tracks by Hideo Ikeezumi of PSF Records, Tokyo.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN - Mort Aux Vaches
2009 - CD (Staalplaat)
AV061CD

On December 14th, 2006 MCIAA recorded a private performance at the historical Holland VPRO radio; invited by director Berry Kamer at the Studio Desmet in Amsterdam for the program Dwars@Vpro, MCIAA performed live three 'instant compositions'. The whole recording session here presented has been recorded and produced by Berry Kamer; on stage the Opalio brothers played electric guitars, space guns, toy microphone, piano toy, mini-xylophone, alientronics and percussions. CD comes in 3-panel gatefold plastic sleeve, with amazing lenticular cover artwork by Erik Kriek (concept by Staalplaat). Ltd. 500 copies.

"Despite its utterly mystifying and goofy lenticular packaging, My Cat Is An Alien’s contribution to Staalplaat’s long-running studio session series is a very focused, formidable, and often incendiary affair. The Opalio brothers have a refreshingly unique and calculated aesthetic that more closely resembles an inspired evolution of free jazz than anything being done by their peers in the noise underground." (BRAINWASHED - USA)

VVAA - DREAM MAGAZINE - issue #9
2009 - magazine + CD comp (Dream Magazine / USA)

128 page Dream Magazine #9 features an article on PAINTING PETALS ON PLANET GHOST by editor George Parsons, with an extended interview to Ramona Ponzini and the Opalio brothers talking about their project as well as ghosts, dreams and more.
Furthermore, PPOPG contributed an exclusive and previously unreleased track to the magazine CD comp, entitled 'Haru no kuni' ('Land of Spring').

Other features include Glenn Branca, Sky Sunlight Saxon of The Seeds and YaHoWha 13, Bird By Snow, Scott Tuma, Helena Espvall, Phantom Buffalo, Andria Degens aka Pantaleimon, Brother JT, Boyd Rice, and David Thomas of Pere Ubu.

#9’s CD features exclusive tracks by: John White, Anvil Salute, Daddy Antogna, Bird By Snow, Mt. Eerie, Helena Espvall and Mori-Shige Yasumune, Pantaleimon, Christian Jonassen, Bob Moss, Casual Fog, Brasil & the Gallowbrothers Band, Sarah June, Painting Petals On Planet Ghost, M. Jarvis / A. Jarvis, Corbi Wright, and more.

MY CAT IS AN ALIEN & ENORE ZAFFIRI - 'Through The Magnifying Glass Of Tomorrow'
2009 - CD+DVD set (Atavistic / USA)
ALP189

"Clandestine auteurs the Opalio Brothers (AKA My Cat Is An Alien) have deftly sprinkled our solar system with their beautifully fragile,arcane soundscape/tracks via their own OPAX label.
Atavistic is most definitely thrilled to have the pleasure of releasing 'Through the magnifying glass of tomorrow', a freshly-minted collaboration with one of the pioneers of radical Italian electronic music, ENORE ZAFFIRI.

Mr. Zaffiri, composer and founder of the legendary SMET (Studio di Musica Elettronica di Torino) in 1964, is 80 years old and has been a "reclused" artist for decades. After meeting Maurizio and Roberto, he decided to set up a collaborative project with them. Their recordings from the Western Alps of Bella Italia, 'Through the magnifying glass of tomorrow', a CD+DVD release running over two hours, is the haunting result from the gathering of these fellow musical cosmonauts." (Atavistic)

>The CD contains MCIAA's collaborative studio session with Mr.Zaffiri
>The DVD disc contains 2 long films:
Light_Earth_Blue_Silver | dual film by Roberto Opalio, soundtrack by MCIAA. 2008 / 37 minutes / 4:3 / color / stereo
Trasparenze | video painting and music by Enore Zaffiri. Revised 2008 / 48 minutes / 4:3 / color / stereo

Light_Earth_Blue_Silver is a dual film by Roberto Opalio, shot in 8mm cassette in January 2005 in a remote location of Italy's western Alps. A first version, with different editing, was screened in April 2005 at The Sage Gateshead, Newcastle UK during a My Cat Is An Alien's live performance. A final editing was made in 2008, adding an original soundtrack by My Cat Is An Alien.

For the film Roberto Opalio made a two-meters-tall alien figure in iron wire, one of the main features inhabiting his own artistic imaginary, and symbol of the transfiguration of the existential vision of the last human being on Earth. The Alien is the character of Light_Earth_Blue_Silver.
This film shows the Alien's physical and existential voyage along a mountain track, where snow, rocks, white birches and pinetrees mark out its way to heaven. As all Opalio's works, the film has different levels of interpretation.

>>read reviews here

SIDE ONE: My Cat Is An Alien “Solar Anarchy” - Recorded live in Cologne, Germany - December 14th, 2006.
Artwork - painting by Roberto Opalio

SIDE A: Pestrepeller “As Wolf” - Recorded by Toby Robinson in his London studio, August 2006.
Artwork by Savage Pencil

My Cat Is An Alien are the brothers Roberto and Maurizio Opalio, who have been spreading their unique brand of mysterious guitarnoise improv across the globe for ten years. Drawing inspiration from cosmic giants such as Sun Ra, My Cat Is An Alien christened their home rehearsal / performance area in Torino as 'The Space Room', and recorded numerous symbolic explorations of the outer galaxies.

Roberto Opalio's creative arts skills have, from the start, been harnessed to realising the visual components of their outer space metaphor, using photography and films; he also executes numerous paintings, sometimes for the benefit of limited-edition art-object records issued on their own OPAX label. Roberto returns obsessively to rendering his striking vision of an attenuated alien figure with its huge lone eye.

Pestrepeller are a band of part-time musicians from the UK. The core trio is Harley Richardson, Ed Pinsent and Savage Pencil. Richardson is a mathematics and computer expert who made a late and sudden conversion to free improvised noise; Ed Pinsent (who plays organ and Moog) is the editor of The Sound Projector Music Magazine and presenter of a radio show of the same name; Savage Pencil, is the only core member with any history of playing in bands, through his association as singer with The Art Attacks and Tagmemics, and guitarist in The Kray Cherubs.

Savage Pencil, well famous cult underground cartoonist, in his almost-30-years career made artworks for several bands (Sonic Youth, Lee Ranaldo, The Fall, Big Black, Masonna, etc.), labels (Sympathy For The Record Industry, SST, Blast First, Beggars Banquet, etc,.), and strips for music magazines (NME, Sound Magazine, The Wire, Mojo,etc.)