Release Date: 6 November 2025
Song Count: 12
Rating: 8.3/10
Description:
If you're here to find an album for your next casual listening session or to put on in the background, today's one, The Mocking Stars, may not be the one for the job. See, Lausse the Cat is not an ordinary artist or musician who happens to just fiddle around with combining genres that, on the surface, really shouldn't mix or go together; rather, this concoction, as shown in this very newly released 12-song album, is one created meticulously out of artistry, creativity and a drive to be different, going the extra mile on a one-way trip straight into sheer abstract territory. Call it hip-hop, jazz, lo-fi, slam poetry, a musicalised version of a 19th century bedtime story, or some other descriptor that could potentially fit the music of The Mocking Stars, but one things is for certain: Lausse the Cat has most certainly managed to be the biggest representative of a hotpot of sounds and ideas that a casual listener probably would not have even known were possible to stitch together.
What draws a listener in to this album, however, is most certainly not just its unusual style and genre, but rather its lyrical and narrative aspects and the story it tells both literally and especially metaphorically. The Mocking Stars is a concept album that centers on the main protagonist of Lausse, the cat, who lives on a rooftop and struggles to find any enjoyment out of his life, fleeing from the sun, the daytime and the happenings of mortal life and instead yearning for a place with the moon and amongst the stars where he can rest in peace and be free of the grief of loneliness he is to bear. Throughout the album, he goes through a transformation as he finds himself stuck in an aimless void and a limbo between life and death, witnesses fellow lonesome animals and "madmen" join their star-spangled deceased companions out of their own volition, and searches for a meaning in his life, until the closing few tracks where the cat decides that perhaps there is something to chase for back on his earthly planet, and "falls down", choosing to instead visit the moon when the time for it comes.
In spite of the childlike nature and presentation of the project as a "play" children are watching full of talking animals and metaphors, the actual contents of Lausse's monologues and what parallels can be drawn with the promise of peace and escape under "the moon", it dawns on the listener quickly that the topic at hand is a much darker and more earnest one, focusing through these simplistic metaphors on the struggles of existential unsurity, depression, loneliness, suicide and the search for something to hold onto in one's life. The cat in the story does find a happy end by finding someone to connect to and choosing to return to his home planet, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of individuals who could potentially empathise with the thoughts and struggles of the cat at the beginning of the story don't receive that same outcome, which is why pieces like these that adress these otherwise socially taboo truths of life and aim for self-expression exist and are important in the world of art.
It's relatively rare that a piece like this, especially a musical one with lo-fi beats, "soft" rapping, jazz instruments and an overall out-of-the-norm yet still somewhat familiar and comfortable ambience, no less, gets one to really think or philosophise all that much. A lot of music out there is simply there to act as something to stimulate the ears, perhaps interest the brain enough to be liked, but otherwise not dare to push the envelope much further and then leave the consciousness; it is abundantly clear, however, that this album is anything but in that category.
While it took a bit of runtime and understanding of the conveyings behind the poetic lyrics for me to start truly warming up to The Mocking Stars, I left the experience with a very positive impression, being glad to have not glossed over this piece simply for not understanding its ups and abouts right away. This is the type of work that would honestly not be out of place as a school project to analyse in a weird mashup of music and english class, but less in a way that bores the soul with yet another assignment about a Shakespeare work and more in a way of being something genuinely worth diving deep into.
Though the genre is one that may take just a little more to quite click, this album is more than worthy of respect and a listen - if not for the beats, then for the greatly told story of Lausse the Cat and his journey through Earth, Mars and the Moon.