Blank Forms Editions / US / 2025
How do I know if my cat likes me? is a conceptual album by Hanne Lippard, Ellen Arkbro, and Hampus Lindwall, blending existential meditation with minimalist sound art. Using repetition, deadpan delivery, and absurd lyrical loops, the work critiques the emptiness of modern life—corporate formalism, online bureaucracy, and automated interaction.
Recorded in part on pipe organs in Switzerland, the album features Arkbro and Lindwall's sparse, enigmatic organ tones paired with Lippard’s spoken-word vocals, which transform mundane phrases into poetic, hypnotic mantras. It opens with a reinterpretation of Phil Harmonic’s 1978 piece “Timing”, an indeterminate work influenced by John Cage, and continues with original tracks like “The Long Goodbye” and “Modern Spanking”, which satirize modern communication and consumerism with surreal, linguistic play.
The album concludes with “At Last I Am Free”, a cover of the Edwards/Rodgers disco ballad reimagined as a weary protest song, adding ironic weight to the album’s themes of alienation and illusionary freedom.
Stylistically, the album evokes past experimental works such as Rosenboom and Humbert’s Daytime Viewing and Paul DeMarinis’s Songs Without Throats—both examples of playful, disembodied voice art. Ultimately, How do I know if my cat likes me? is a surreal, poetic, and critical sonic journey through the automated textures of contemporary life.