My Cat Is An Alien (MCIAA) is an Italian musical duo and outsider audiovisual artist consisting of brothers Maurizio and Roberto Opalio, formed in Torino, Italy, in late 1997.
[3] Tony Herrington, editor-in-chief & publisher of The Wire, characterizes the duo as Roberto and his brother Maurizio are the highly advanced lifeforms crewing the mysterious starship that goes by the name of My Cat Is An Alien (MCIAA), plotting a quixotic course through three millennia of cosmic music, from the celestial drones of the Pythagorean monochord onwards, to land up in the gravity-free realm of the No-mind[4]The group has a large number of albums and side project material which is widely available on CDs, LPs and digital downloads released by the labels Atavistic (USA), Important (USA), Very Friendly/ Cargo (UK), P.S.F.
[7]After other key works such as Il Segno (Starlight Furniture Co., 2003), and Through The Reflex Of The Rain (Free Porcupine Society, 2005), in 2005 Important Records started releasing some albums that were met with praise by critics and contemporaries alike—Cosmic Light Of The Third Millennium (2005), Leave Me In The Black No-Thing (2007), For The Tears Of The Land_Prayers From The Outer Space (2009), Roberto Opalio's soloist debut Chants From Isolated Ghosts (2007), and an untitled limited split vinyl LP of solo works by the two brothers (2009)— This is highly original music.You can get lost inside its minimal, limpid beauty.claimed Ed Pinsent, editor & publisher of The Sound Projector Magazine.
[8] Different Shades Of Blue, published by defunct label A Silent Place in 2006, has been awarded album of 2005 in the Top 30 chart "THE BEST OF AMBIENT WORKS 1978-2008" by the prestigious Studio Voice multi-media magazine[9] and book publications in Japan.
[10] In 2005 the Opalio brothers moved their recording studio from Torino to a remote and secret location in the Western Alps they call 'Alien Zone', where Roberto introduced his wordless vocalizations as a leading instrument.
In this regard English writer Ken Hollings, author of MCIAA cover article in The Wire, states: Less a celestially pure tone than a cosmic moan, his brother's [Roberto] vocals find a distant echo in Blind Willie Johnson's Dark Was The Night Cold Was The Ground, recorded on Earth back in 1927 but currently making its way through deep space aboard Voyager as part of its collection of human music.
On September 14, 2011 My Cat Is An Alien's first thirteen years of activity were celebrated with ALIENOLOGY: Selected Works 1998-2008, a ten disc box retrospective published by Elliptical Noise.
[13] My Cat Is An Alien have multimedia collaborations with acts such as Sonic Youth, Thurston Moore, Lee Ranaldo, Christian Marclay, Keiji Haino, Jim O'Rourke, Loren Mazzacane Connors, Jackie-O Motherfucker, Nels Cline (Wilco), Text of Light, Steve Roden, Christina Carter (Charalambides), Mats Gustafsson, Enore Zaffiri and many more.
[1] In July 2004 MCIAA started a project of collaboration with some of these artists in the form of two series of special split Art-LP releases (later re-issued on CD) entitled From the earth to the Spheres (7 volumes) and Cosmic Debris (5 volumes), which have been acclaimed as some of the most original publications in the record history, every vinyl copy coming along a proper 30x30 cm acrylic painting on canvas or wood panels, in the latter series with the addition of installed Polaroid films.
wrote Edwin Pouncey (The Wire),[15] The creative concept behind the Opalio brothers' ongoing From the earth to the Spheres series of dual recordings featuring guest artists is somewhat reminiscent of the ESP-Disk mantra.
My Cat Is An Alien's shamanic-like live performances are rare; during the years they showed up only at selected special events, and some of the most prestigious international festivals of avant garde and experimental music: K-RAA-K (Belgium), Ferrara Sotto Le Stelle (Italy), the Festival International de Musique Actuelle de Victoriaville (Canada), whose recording has been released through Les Disques VICTO (Il Suono Venuto dallo Spazio, 2006), and ATP Nightmare Before Christmas curated by Thurston Moore (UK), were MCIAA were introduced this way: My Cat Is An Alien's music is always free at its root level, always exploring some nook of the cosmos...
All of the artworks of My Cat Is An Alien's records represent paintings, photos and drawings by Roberto Opalio, and are curated personally by the duo, thus giving a totally peculiar visual aspect to their musical releases.
Other than the official exhibition catalog published by Walter Koenig,[21] curator Roland Groenenboom presented a spin-off limited zine at Malmo Konsthall, featuring exclusive artworks by Roberto Opalio and MCIAA, alongside Christian Marclay, Savage Pencil, Barbara Ess, Marco Fusinato.
The film was presented at Netwerk Center for Contemporary Art in Aalst (Belgium) in March 2009, at Octubre CCC (Centre de Cultura Contemporània) in Valencia (Spain) in April 2009, at Netmage.10 International Live-Media Festival at Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna (Italy) in January 2010.