Catinca - Planet Maniac

Catinca is a brand-new name to me, and seeing as how that’s the case I’m gonna give a bit of an intro to this artist. Rummaging through the depths of synthpop, darkwave, and all things electro does catinca breathe life into her own variation of electronic beats. Sometimes dark and heavy, other times sad and dramatic, and occasionally joyful and upbeat, Catinca has been releasing a steady stream of singles since November of 2021. All of these singles have recently culminated into her debut album “Planet Maniac”, an eleven-track album filled with original tracks, one collaboration, and one remix. Let’s go. 

First, let’s focus on the good. A bit of a minimalist approach is taken on what can be considered the title track of Catinca’s album “Planet Maniac”. What we get is a slow rolling beat featuring clashing percussion, soft drum pads, and light electro sensations. What this allows is Catinca’s deeper voice to be fully featured, allowing her lush chords to be heard; to let them sink into your veins. I wasn’t a huge fan of the brighter, almost 8-bit sounding synth notes that played in the forefront of the track, as I found them rather distracting and off putting; they didn’t fit into the beat that well. 

‘Fear of the unknown’ came in next and introduced very light industrial elements, with a rolling bassline with a bit of a crush at the end. But moody synthesizers came in next and introduced catinca’s wondrous voice once more, though there is an emphasis of sadness within her tone. The backing ambiance also gave the song a bit of an otherworldly flair – which I adored. ‘Black Angel’ is one of catinca’s most powerful songs on the album. It’s a punchy synthpop ballad where her voice is just as – if not, more – powerful than the beats. 

Something that is completely unexpected on the album is Catinca’s collaboration with Yellow Majesty. And it’s not because she’s working with another artist, but because she’s doing something completely different. Rather than sticking with her electro, synthpop, and darkwave influences, Catinca dives into the noisey end of the spectrum, creating what some would call noisepop. Her voice is as fluent as ever, but the crushed industrial storm found within the single is brilliant. And one of the last songs I would like to highlight on the album would be Tino Tranquilo’s remix of ‘Stay’, which gives it an italo-disco beat. I think the length could have been trimmed, but it’s still a damned fun piece. 

And onto the bad. I felt as if ‘Without Me’ lacked the punch the previous two tracks contained, perhaps due to lack of a stronger bass element or percussion. While catinca still gives a home run with her voice, the instrumental bit of the song sounded unfinished. ‘Space & Time’ is another track I wasn’t too fond of. Once more, I feel as if the music on this one is unfinished. I also feel as if the catinca’s voice doesn’t flow too well with the song; it’s off beat. A complaint I’ve had many times, it sounds as if her voice was recorded for one song, and the music for another, and somehow, they met up here. A song that I will certainly skip on repeated visits to “Planet Maniac”.

The other songs include ‘Stay’, ‘Home’, ‘Only Me’, and ‘Mindgame’. While they didn’t get a mention in this review, I still heavily enjoyed them. I feel as if any words I could use to describe them would be redundant at this point; just know that if you skip them, you’re missing out. 

There are a few slight bruises on Catinca’s debut album “Planet Maniac”, but they are so small that there’s not much to complain about. I’m eager to see where Catinca will take her music next, and if she’ll collaborate more. Her music’s already well-produced, and I can only see her going higher from here. Seven out of ten.