It’s been a tough year for Chan Marshall, otherwise known as Cat Power.  She was jilted by her “soul mate,”  then in and out of hospitals with afflictions, and left to wind her way through new ways to expand her sound-palette to maintain interest and relevancy.  The upshot?  She delivered a deftly-adventurous, critically-acclaimed album, Sun, with its modern-sounding rhythms and added effects.   Many would have been perfectly happy with a classic Cat Power sound, rather than the comparatively-evolved sounds on Sun.

It wasn’t surprising, therefore, that rumors began swirling that Cat Power will release a new compendium of songs that didn’t fit onto Sun.  One of the first song-clues can be heard below.  Marshall recently performed the song Bully on Later with Jools Holland, accompanied only by solo piano.  Bully exhibits more of the fragility and emotion that originally won her fans and which would have fit well onto her older albums Moon Pix or The Covers Record.  But instead Bully is (as of now) a bonus track on the iTunes-purchasable Sun album.  Check the performance below.  In other good news:  Cat Power’s tour is going so well that she/they have announced the addition of more shows.  The current dates follow the lyrics at bottom.

Bully:

“Boy, you’re a bully
Through the grass and the river you chase
You were cruel, you were so mean
Laughing right in my face
All the while you had my back, my best friend
I can still feel that smile on my face
27 was a good year, the best
The back of the bar watching me dance in a dress
Remember that night in Paris, all those candles you lit
You and all the alcohol
Sleeping on the street, sleeping on a …
Looking like a crook for trying to come back home
With a twist of your tongue and a devilish smile on your face
When you get sick
You were through with fun and games
Now that the times have all changed
I can’t find you,
I can’t put you back into place
Nothing could be done
For this young, wild son
Standing on the street in a hospital sheet
All on the run from the police
Dumb girl on your arm
That look on your face
And all those crazy things you said to me
I can never forget
Everything you have to go through
With a smile on your face
Everything we now know, with a smile on our face
I, I can never forget”

Cat Power Tour Dates (new in bold):

May 18 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil / Circo Voador
May 19 Recife, Brazil / Espaço Catamarã
May 21 São Paulo, Brazil / Cine Joia
May 23 Buenos Aires, Argentina / Teatro Coliseo
May 25 Santiago, Chile / Teatro La Cúpula
May 27 Montevideo, Uruguay / La Trastienda
May 31 Nelsonville, OH / Nelsonville Music Festival
June 1 – 2 Houston, TX / Free Press Summer Festival
June 13 – 16 Manchester, TN / Bonnaroo
June 16 Jacksonville, FL / Florida Theatre
June 18 Atlanta, GA / The Buckhead Theatre
June 20 Vienna, VA / Wolf Trap Filene Center
June 22  Duisburg, Germany / Traumziet Festival
June 23  Berlin, Germany / Tempodrom
June 25  London, UK / Roundhouse
June 26  Brussels, BE / AB
June 27  Zurich, CH / Volkshaus
June 28 Munich, DE / Theater Fabrik
June 30 Somerset, UK / Glastonbury – SOLD OUT
July 2  Amsterdam, NL / Paradiso
July 3  Hamburg, DE / Grosse Freiheit
July 5 Barcelona, ES / Cruilla Festival
July 6 Montreux, SW / Montreux Jazz Lab
July 7 Milan, IT / Carroponte
July 8 Rome, IT / Parco della Musica
July 17 Paris, FR / Olympia
July 19 Suffolk, UK / Latitude
July 20 Ponznan, PL / Malta Festival
August 2-4 Chicago, IL / Lollapalooza
August 8 Oslo, NO / OYA festival
August 9 Helsinki, FI / Flow festival
August 10 Gothenburg, SE / Way Out West festival