by RUPERT BOTTENBERG

They’re popping up in Paris and Pennsylvania, rural Australia and quaint old Quebec City, on banners, umbrellas, car windows and bathroom walls. They’re called Pablos, and they’re a brilliant stroke of both iconographic design—a cat’s eye with a crown—and diabolical propaganda, implemented by enthusiastic fans, in what’s clearly a gambit for world domination.

Given that they’ve called themselves the Cat Empire, the sextet from Melbourne, Australia (a full dozen with their auxiliary Empire Horns and Dancers, who sadly won’t be bundled along for Montreal) sports a moniker suited to global omnipotence—and the right sound, too. Their bright, gregarious blend of hip hop, ska, salsa, classic soul, brassy Balkanization and good ol’ witty Anglo pop rock amounts to a sort of musical Esperanto. It carries well over distance.

“People who’ve heard of our music tend to travel a lot,” notes bassist Ryan Monro. “I know one guy who got our CD from somebody in Sri Lanka, another who heard us on the radio in Nepal. One guy saw us play in Amsterdam three years ago, and then he was in Singapore and decided to check us out.”

Guess what nation is next in the Cat Empire’s big game of Risk? “We played a show up in Vermont, and we were a bit nervous—we thought, ‘Who’s going to come see us?’ But we got a good crowd, and found out later that it was about 80 per cent people who’d driven from Montreal. We thought, ‘Maybe we should play in Canada some time.’

“Then we played in Pennsylvania, and there were Canadians who’d spent 30 hours on the bus to come see us. Then we thought, ‘Okay, now we have to play Canada!’”

Not only are they playing here— and word has it that the Cat Empire is simply one of the best live acts in the world—but they’ve sealed a deal with local label Indica, whose own Dobacaracol have been making serious headway Down Under. Indica has released an expanded version of the Cat Empire’s Two Shoes, featuring older tracks and a DVD of live footage and videos as a bonus.

In keeping with the Cat Empire’s internationalism, Two Shoes was recorded at the legendary Egrem Studios in Havana, Cuba (you know, like the Buena Vista guys)—no small undertaking, logistically. “I guess once we thought of the idea, it was hard to talk ourselves out of it,” laughs Monro. “What possible rational reason could you come up with for not going to Cuba?

More recently, this past March, the Cat Empire pulled off their latest imperial coup. In front of 200,000 live spectators and reps from 71 countries, they kicked off the Commonwealth Games (the Anglo-lympics, if you will). “They wanted us to write over an hour of music for the opening ceremony. We thought, that’s great, because when all the athletes walk out, that’s usually the boring bit. But putting a Cat Empire gig in the middle of it all made it pretty cool. It was a pretty huge buzz playing in front of that many people—and God knows how many people were watching it on TV. I guess we never will know.”

WITH BEDOUIN SOUNDCLASH AT METROPOLIS ON SATURDAY, JULY 1, 8:30 P.M., $22.50

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