Cat Power - Moon Pix

Moon Pix is the album that pulled Chan Marshall back from the edge of quitting music. Much of it poured out in a single night at a South Carolina farmhouse, written in the wake of a vivid, terrifying dream. She carried the songs to Melbourne and recorded them with Mick Turner and Jim White of the Dirty Three, whose spare guitar and drifting drums gave the record its haunted, weightless feel.

Released on Matador in 1998, Moon Pix moves at the pace of a held breath. "Cross Bones Style" and "Metal Heart" come closest to anthems, while "Colors and the Kids" and "Say" sit in a hush that feels almost private. Marshall's voice, cracked and intimate, turns dread into something close to comfort.

Widely regarded as her masterpiece and later placed among Pitchfork's best albums of the 1990s, this Matador LP presents one of the decade's great singer-songwriter statements. A quietly devastating record.