by Ziggy Merritt

This past Friday saw the energetic musicians known as Sol Cat perform their first show in Philadelphia at the North Star Bar alongside Bulgarian expats, Shy Boyz and Field Graves featuring members of Philly-based Ruby the Hatchet.

The start of that night began with a brief interview with members of Sol Cat, namely Johny Fischer on keyboard and guitar, Jaan Cohan also on guitar, and drummer Tom Myers who all expanded on some of the inspiration and composition behind their latest EP, Uno. A brief history of the band forwarded the conversation of the Nashville-based collective who came to know each other through a small private school, majoring for the most part in music business and audio engineering. “It took us a while for all of us to meet each other”, Fischer explained. “Then two, two-and-a-half years ago, Tom moved to Nashville, and since then it’s been the five of us.”

With a solidified lineup, the current roster of Sol Cat then released a number of genre-hopping albums and EPs alongside vocalist, Brett Hammann and keyboardist, Jeremy Clark. Uno came out in May of this year featuring psychedelic instrumentation perhaps inspired by The Doors alongside the lush, almost ambient ornamentation of the synth. Hammann, as Fischer explained, was the brainchild behind much of the lyrical content featured on Uno. “He’s a very honest songwriter”, Fischer continued. “He doesn’t write something to make someone feel happy or writes for anyone else, he writes, really, just for himself.”

This honesty returns well in the sound of Uno, where the imaginative vocals share the mainstage equally with the instrumentation and inventive sampling. It feels cohesive and that same cohesion can be felt through their own performance. I’ll get to that part in a bit.

Back to the making of Uno, the band wanted to focus on the “percussiveness and the groove” for this EP and the upcoming Dos. Fischer again elaborated on the challenge of “creating a simplistic groove but making it intricate.” “We’re not a math rock band”, as he explains. “You can play the same two chords for five minutes, but play it each time, make it different. That’s what we did we these songs, simple parts, but we play it as interesting as we could.”

Along with that same simplicity also comes a dash of zany sampling. Their track “Tumbleweed” begins with the warped laughter from a currently unknown stop-motion, Rankin-Bass-style record from Clark’s album collection. “Our little ode to retro claymation”, as they explain. And their track “SPK”? An ode to an egg sandwich. This identifies them not just as artists challenging the numbing bind of genre classification, but as a band that has fun with their production, recording, and witty lyricism.

And this shows just as well onstage with a set that included much of their current catalog with tracks from Uno opening and closing the performance. Remarkably their live sound acts much like a mirror for their recordings, something Cohan additionally spoke to in our interview. “If we really wanted to Jer could have a Nord, he could have a laptop. But it’s the art of trying to recreate something we did in the studio to the best of our ability. We use older amps, we use guitars that are vintage that capture that sound.”

Between seamless transitions and improvisations on their tracks, the live performance captures that same vintage sound of 60s psychedelica while preserving their own interests and influence of ambient electronics for the still energetic layering of synth supplied by Clark and occasionally Fischer. After all, “synths are cool”, as Cohan happily remarked.

The previous performances by Field Graves and Shy Boyz did well to open up the night, granting Sol Cat an appreciative and responsive crowd. Field Graves opened up with crooning vocals and a soaring guitar, something that would occasionally drown out some of their other instrumentation but nevertheless proved to be an entertaining entry into the night’s festivities. Shy Boyz then followed as bizarrely and bewildering as possible. Try to mix in Donna Summer, funk, and a bit of the Beastie Boys and you might get something similar to the set that followed. This is all good mind you, even through the splash of wigs, clothes, and pumps that would occasionally assault the crowd.

Sol Cat finished out the night strong, delivering a performance that spoke to the honesty in their interview. “SPK” and “Body Like That” were particular heavy-hitters that night alongside tracks from their own self-titled album and the Jungle Sessions EP. They rounded out a memorable set that left a distinctive, killer first impression. Keep a look out for Dos due sometime later this year, or in the meantime check out Uno and their singles “Body Like That” and “Bread on the Table.”