Looking at the Cat Empire's social media presence, you'd figure that famed Australian genre blenders are also big gamers. A recent Tweet posted before the band left for their current Canadian tour pictures a meeting between a couple of longtime members and brightly-coloured Pokémon Go feather flapper Pidgey. According to an Instagram post uploaded just minutes before the Westender receives a call from trumpeter/vocalist Harry James Angus, the act had been enjoying some backstage time at Quebec's Le Festif! festival playing vintage console classic Super Mario World. Angus doesn't know about any of this, mind you, as he's still trying to master basic telecommunication.
"I can't even work this fucking phone," the musician says with a laugh of not understanding the mechanics of his hotel phone, adding that this is the fourth interview in a row that he's done by resorting to "kind of talking into the speaker."
Of his bandmate's advanced tech abilities, Angus admits that bassist Ryan Monro is augmenting his reality on tour by undertaking an international Pokémon spree. The trumpeter, however, isn't as interested in catching them all.
"I was never good at that stuff, I missed my chance," he says with a sigh that somehow reflects both disappointment and deep satisfaction. "I could start practicing now, but I think of all the hours I saved that I wasn't playing video games."
Considering the Cat Empire's many achievements since first forming in the late '90s, from recording seven full-length albums to traveling through venues around the world, you can't blame the guy for wanting to put his digits onto his brass instrument instead of a Nintendo controller.
Currently, the fusionists are out on the road promoting the recently released Rising with the Sun, an 11-song balancing act that brings together standard jazz sounds with sweltering cumbia rhythms, peaceful reggae grooves, and the overjoyed bustle of a midnight soul revue. Oftentimes, this happens within the same song.
Though Angus notes the Cat Empire casts its net wide, 15 years of performing together has led to a more organic blend than the direct genre exercises of album's past.
"On our early records, it was this thing where every song was from a different place. One song sounds like it's from Eastern Europe, and all of a sudden you're in Jamaica. That was kind of our gimmick, and it was really fun for us because we were interested in the music of the world," Angus says, adding that they've since moved beyond simple song-to-song eclecticism to make less definable arrangements.
"It's worn thin, the idea of borrowing and stealing from other cultures and covering their music. The last two records, we've really tried to make music which sounds exotic still, but it can't be pinned down to any place in particular."
For proof, the electronics-spiked thud of Rising with the Sun opener "Wolves" initially plays out as four-on-the-floor heavy EDM-Pop, but the pack of Aussies quickly add Latin funk-inspired brass and turntablist Jamshid "DJ Jumps" Khadiwhala's various swirling samples to the template. "Bulls" traffics in both rock and rocksteady rhythms, while "Midnight" is a hip-swerver that wraps old school hip-hop scratches around a Studio One-styled reggae organ.
But while Rising with the Sun still presents a sort of musical tourism, Angus and co. are conscious of what they're cribbing. The band hadn't always contemplated the implications of cultural appropriation, but the trumpeter is more than willing to have a dialogue on what's respectful and what's ill-informed pastiche.
"There are certain things that I now believe are really weird," he explains. "One is singing in a Jamaican accent if you're not Jamaican. I'd never really thought about it when we started: whenever you do a reggae song you just slip into a slight, pseudo-Jamaican accent. Now I think that's so strange."
As it stands, "Midnight" finds Angus and wife Emily Lubitz using unaffected but effective falsettos as they become king and queen on the dancefloor. The vocalist explains: "that song is about losing yourself in dancing. It's a feeling which I find very hard to attain. It's a feeling of when you've been dancing for so long that you don't think about whether you look cool or not anymore."
Another united number on the new album is "Bataclan," a song co-vocalist Felix Riebel wrote in response to last November's mass shooting at an Eagles of Death Metal concert at Paris' Bataclan venue, which claimed close to 90 lives. It's a spot that the Cat Empire had themselves played in 2007 and 2012, leaving the group to wonder a truly horrific “what if?”
"It felt very close to home, even though it actually wasn't physically close to home," Angus posits. "It's a place we'd been, and it's also something we do every night, being onstage at a concert and seeing happy faces looking up."
While it begins with a mournful ring of brass, "Bataclan" turns into both a tribute for the fallen ("nothing but the sun can black out what's been done") and a swinging rally cry for the survivors ("tonight we'll beat the drums louder than our pain").
It's a song that crosses the spectrum of emotion the way the Cat Empire mixes musical styles. After all, the dancefloor is a place where everyone is welcome.
• The Cat Empire play the Commodore Ballroom on Aug. 2 and 3.
