Introduction

BUDDHA AND THE CHOCOLATE BOX (1974)
1) Music; 2) Oh Very Young; 3) Sun/C79; 4) Ghost Town; 5) Jesus; 6) Ready; 7) King Of Trees; 8) A Bad Penny; 9) Home In The Sky.
Almost as if he suddenly woke up and became terrified at what 1973 did to his ego, Stevens hur­riedly backtracks — and ends up with a far more predictable, but just as problematic sequel to Catch Bull At Four. Paul Samwell-Smith is back in the producer's seat, the trusty old band with Alun Davies at the forefront is restored, and Jamaica is abandoned in favor of good old London. We are also back to the custom of weird album titles: this one, apparently, is due to Cat finding himself traveling on an airplane with a statuette of Buddha in one hand and a box of chocolates in the other, and implies being caught in a gap between the spiritual and the material. Although, it might be argued, the real Buddha would just wince back at him and ask, hey Cat, are you sure you can truly tell one from the other?
The main problem is that he got so busy telling one from the other, he hardly even noticed that he'd come out with one of his weakest albums to date. By this time, he'd graduated to Mr. Spiri­tual Incarnate, and where his records from the early 1970s could qualify as bold anti-commercial artistic statements (ironically, they sold pretty well), this record is largely a collection of sermons where the man frankly does not give a damn about anything else — be it catchy pop hooks or challenging chord sequences. He may have gone back to shorter songs, but at least the ʽForeigner Suiteʼ was not so utterly loaded with pretense as these tunes, where he comes forward as some master guru — and, let me add, without truly deserving it. In fact, this is the first record to contain Cat Stevens songs that I openly consider detestable.
Fortunately, that opinion does not concern the album's only single and Cat's last big original hit, before his commercial fortune abandoned him completely: ʽOh Very Youngʼ, sometimes called Stevens' response to ʽAmerican Pieʼ (since it also takes Buddy Holly as its pivot character), is a short and harmless acoustic ballad that implicitly suggests God might be a big fan of ʽWords Of Loveʼ (well, not exactly, but you can read the lyrics that way if you wish to). The preachiness is present here, too, but at least it has a decently written chorus; that said, I can certainly think of some better songs written by James Taylor, and that thought alone makes me shiver.
But almost everything else is simply dreadful: raw, poorly slapped together melodies that Cat tries to fatten up with ecstatic arrangements and vocal deliveries that suggest spiritual enlighten­ment, but ring hollow. ʽMusicʼ is a gospel-rock construct where Stevens tries going black once again, and the results are pitiful when viewed in context. ʽJesusʼ sounds like he's talking to the little kids again, so let us keep this one for the kindergarten hour. (As a sidenote, I will mention that the subject matter of the song — the unity of all religions — is the same as in George Harri­son's ʽLife Itselfʼ; the difference between the two is that Harrison fully redeems himself with the brilliant melodic lines in the opening thirty seconds of the song, a short, but beautiful guitar journey that is fifty times as spiritual as any of the words these guys come up with).
Worst of the lot is ʽKing Of Treesʼ, an eco-anthem that drags on for five minutes without any­thing interesting going on — the only thing that is supposed to attract attention is the tension and worry in the singer's voice as he violently and vehemently protests against cutting down trees, laying down the roads, and, I suppose, also against putting up the cozy Sound Techniques Studios where the album was recorded. Again, it is not the naïve, but admittedly sincere nature-loving lyrics that are embarrassing (although I would say that Joni Mitchell's ʽBig Yellow Taxiʼ at least has more original imagery): it is the fact — okay, the suspicion — that the song was quickly thrown together around the lyrics, not the other way around. And ultimately, all the talents of Joanne, Judy, Sunny, Ruby, Barry, Joy, Brigette, Suzanne, Jacqui, and other family-deprived singers recruited by Cat to give him gospel choir support go to waste.
I will not even try to discuss the rest of the songs. Melody-wise, even after four listens to this short collection of songs I cannot remember any of them. Lyrics-wise, they go from ecological rants to odes of salvation to condemnations of socialites (ʽA Bad Pennyʼ) that do not mean any­thing unless they are being put to good music. Perhaps the only exception is the lightweight ʽGhost Townʼ, a bit of harmonica and slide-driven country-rock used by Cat as an excuse to name some of his deceased favorites, from Chico & Harpo all the way down to Anne Boleyn. But it is clearly a throwaway, although it certainly does not offend me the way ʽKing Of Treesʼ does with its puffed-up seriousness.
Bottomline is: this time around, the man honestly does not even try. He used to fiddle about with odd combinations of folk melodies and Latin rhythms, dabble in medieval balladry, translate his verses into Latin, send cryptic messages that were a chore to decode, but here he just says to hell with it, assembles himself a gospel choir and presumes that as long as he preaches peace, love, and humility, this should be enough for anybody who is ready to follow. Well guess what? In this context, I definitely choose the chocolate box over Buddha. Thumbs down.

NUMBERS (1975)
1) Whistlestar; 2) Novim's Nightmare; 3) Majik Of Majiks; 4) Drywood; 5) Banapple Gas; 6) Land O' Free Love & Goodbye; 7) Jzero; 8) Home; 9) Monad's Anthem.
Around this time, Stevens got particularly fascinated with numerology — just another one of his turns — and decided to try his hand at conceptuality once again, writing a mini-rock opera that would somehow revolve around numbers. The story that he invented was never fully explicated, but partially made it to the album's liner notes and partially to the lyrics. You can read about it in more details in a variety of sources, starting with Wikipedia, but honestly, I wouldn't pay it too much attention, unless you have pledged to accept Cat Stevens as an intellectual beacon rather than a musician. In fact, this was probably how it went in 1975: Numbers was routinely ridiculed as an embarrassingly pretentious conceptual disaster — the critics hated it because it once again made a strange jerk in the direction of prog-rock, and the fans were left befuddled because it offered neither pop hooks nor easily accessible spiritual enlightenment.
Once again, though, I have to play a controversial role here: throwing overboard all the sci-fi fluff about planets populated by Pythagorean concepts, I see a record that returns Cat Stevens to the world of music-making, easily his most focused effort since Tea For The Tillerman, well worth revisiting by those who expected another set of soulful folk ditties, but got something far more experimental instead. True, the jazzy and funky elements that are all over the record remain a bit alien to Stevens' nature, but, as he did on Foreigner, he is capable of enhancing the melodic aspect of groove-based music to compensate for the lack of energy. And he is really all over the place, trying to find a different face for each of the nine tracks — sometimes successfully, some­times controversially, but who cares? After the preachy disaster of Buddha, the man suddenly remembered that he used to be a composer, and that's enough for me.
Now, meet the harbinger of disaster: ʽBanapple Gasʼ, the only single from the album and one of the most commonly hated Stevens songs, according to my observations. Putting it out as a single was probably a mistake — it is intentionally slight, yet fully adequate to its sarcastic purpose, mock­ing the self-delusional state of society with a happy country-meets-Caribbean pop song that would not have sounded out of place on an Osmonds record, or in a soda commercial. In the overall context of the album, it is clearly parodic, though it also fulfills the important function of offering a light breather in between the heavier stuff. Funny, catchy, but obviously fluffy and about as suitable for the role of a lead single as, say, ʽHoney Pieʼ would be for The Beatles. On the other hand, it is one of the few tracks whose lyrics are more or less autonomous and allow it to be sampled outside of the concept, so perhaps that was the driving motivation. Or maybe, in the era of Main Course and KC & The Sunshine Band, Stevens — or his record company — thought it was dance time, even for spiritual singer-songwriters. Who knows?
In a perfect universe, the lead single should have been ʽMajik Of Majiksʼ, one of the man's most complex and interesting musical creations since the ʽForeigner Suiteʼ. The composition effort­lessly flows from slow piano ballad to a proto-disco dance groove, sharp strings and all, and is also embellished by David Sanborn's sax parts (apparently, Stevens did not turn a deaf ear to Bowie's Young Americans, either). Unlike ʽBanapple Gasʼ, this one has no vocal hooks, but it's not as if Stevens had never released a hookless single before — and it does know how to build up and release tension, with lead and background vocals and strings and saxes working as a perfect team. Besides, it can also be viewed outside of context: essentially, the lyrics are talking about a meeting with a supernatural being that leads the singer to an epiphany — hopefully, Cat was really stoned when he wrote that. Not all that convoluted.
Elsewhere, the record fluctuates between soft jazz (the opening instrumental ʽWhistlestarʼ, a very nice theme with real whistling and somewhat soundtrackish, but memorable piano phrases from Jean Roussel, Cat's trusty sidekick); orchestrated medieval dark folk (ʽNovim's Nightmareʼ); and the usual folk-pop formula (ʽHomeʼ). It is not a tremendous amount of variety, but then the album, like all Cat Stevens albums, is also quite short — although still not free of some tedious filler tracks (ʽDrywoodʼ tries too hard and too long to put out a harsh blues-rock vibe, but lacks that special something — like a Sanborn sax solo — to properly ignite); and the pompous choral conclusion, ʽMonad's Anthemʼ, where, I assume, it is explained that all the naughty numbers are really one, lays on the chorus effects too thickly, abusing the talents of the «Magic Children Of Ottawa» (whoever they are) without getting anywhere. At least the Stones knew that a full-scale symphonic choir on one of their songs (ʽYou Can't Always Get What You Wantʼ) could only work as an introduction; Stevens decided that it would make a fine two-minute conclusion to the album, and in the process, turned it into some young adult vaudeville show.
Still, the best thing about Numbers is that the conceptuality of the project, instead of harming the music, seems to have positively influenced it — you can toss the concept for all you want, the best songs on this album work perfectly fine without it, and the worst ones would never have worked with it anyway. I will not go as far in my controversy as to openly recommend it, what with all its flaws and inconsistencies, but it was a major step in the right direction, and who knows? had the public and the critics truly embraced it, maybe today's Yusuf Islam could have ended up being Pythagorid McBoole instead, and spent the rest of his days collaborating with Count Von Count on educational activities for children. Then again, it is unlikely that Stevens' spiritual path could ever depend that much on mass opinion.

IZITSO (1977)
1) (Remember The Days Of The) Old Schoolyard; 2) Life; 3) Killin' Time; 4) Kypros; 5) Bonfire; 6) (I Never Wanted) To Be A Star; 7) Crazy; 8) Sweet Jamaica; 9) Was Dog A Doughnut?; 10) Child For A Day.
After Numbers had failed to chart (apparently, the magic of numerology cannot influence the number of sold copies), A&M Records allegedly freaked out and demanded that their resident hit writer produce something commercially viable. By early 1977, Cat seems to have already em­barked on the path that would soon bring him to Allah, but there was as of yet no thought of abandoning the music business — so he not only complied to the label's demands, but also put some thought and effort in the creation of the record, balancing his truth-seeking singer-songwri­ter persona with an almost surprisingly prescient quest for musical innovation.
Recorded with a small army of session musicians, Izitso goes heavier on synthesizers than ever before, but not because of their trendiness — Stevens tries to peek into the future here, and he might even be significantly influenced by some of the decade's pioneers of the electronic sound. Two of the tracks are completely instrumental and completely different from each other: ʽKyprosʼ is like a Greek folk song redone with drum machines and electronics (in a most attractive way, since Cat uses a whole array of devices and timbres to imitate pianos, strings, and woodwinds), whereas ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ is an interesting early example of an electropop number: funky, jerky, robotic — you could probably break-dance to this tune and never know it was Cat Stevens in the first place. Some people were totally not prepared to hear this kind of material from Cat, and even today still accuse him of messing around with stuff he does not truly understand, but I think he does the robotic vibe fairly well — though, admittedly, I have a hard time picturing him b-boying to this soundtrack. Hello Cat Stevens, IDM pioneer!
The majority of this record is still about the soul, though, not the body. The long-awaited hit single, ʽThe Old Schoolyardʼ, was also dominated by synthesizers, but its main theme, delivered by Cat in a duet with Elkie Brooks, is nostalgic: I think he was going for a sort of ʽDon't Go Breaking My Heartʼ success story here, but with the song's stuttering rhythms, lack of an imme­diately memorable chorus, and somewhat fussy production, it could never hope for the same acclaim and it did not get one, only charting at #33, a slight improvement over ʽBanapple Gasʼ but nowhere near the level of his major past successes. The second single, ʽSweet Jamaicaʼ, did not chart at all — with its overwhelming string arrangements, it seemed poised at the soft-dance-pop market that certainly needed no Cat Stevens to liven it up in 1977. Frankly speaking, it is a pretty bad song, and the fact that all of its lyrics are on the level of "You're my world as far as I'm concerned", it can be easily deduced that this was an intentional throwaway, offered by Stevens to the label as a false appeasement while he was busy working on something more interesting. (Even ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ, when released as a single, ended up charting higher).
What was probably not intended as a throwaway is the album's second worst song, ʽ(I Never Wanted) To Be A Starʼ, whose title is self-explanatory and whose lyrics are filled with self-quo­tations and acute disdain for "parties avec les bourgeois", at a fairly flat level of imagery and wordplay, not supported by a well-fleshed out melody, either. You'd think that a man as wise as Mr. Georgiou could have calmed down on this issue, particularly at a time when his religious quest was nearing its final moment of triumph, but perhaps he had a bad lunch with an A&M representative or something, so now you have to sit through this three-minute rant as the man explains that "I only wanted to run my own race / So I could win a small place in your heart". At least we can assume he's not lying about it — but the song is still quite poor.
In case you suspect an anti-Stevens bias here, let me quickly turn the conversation towards a song that is not at all poor: ʽChild For A Dayʼ is probably his finest conclusion for a song cycle since at least ʽPeace Trainʼ. It is a fairly formulaic country-soul number, but it just has everything going for it: good lyrics, good combination of piano and organ, clever build-up towards the chorus, supportive backing vocals, restrained, but powerful guitar solo, pretty mix of soft wah-wah and slide guitars for the coda. And it also offers a healthy conservative contrast with the wild futurism of ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ — so that the album only seems to get stronger and stronger as it approaches the grand finale.
The rest of the songs I am not too certain about (still trying to understand, for instance, if the unusually heavy funk of ʽKillin' Timeʼ is a cool or an awful idea), but even with what there is, Izitso deserves a thumbs up — its experimental bits are more self-assured and make more sense than the ones on Numbers, and its soulful bits, with the exception of ʽTo Be A Starʼ, are once again set to creative musical ideas. Most importantly, you can see how he is willing to modernize his soft-rock sound, but only under the condition of staying in complete control. He did employ a hip young producer, David Kershenbaum, to help him with all the funky bits and the synthesizers, but other than ʽDoughnutʼ, not a single track here could be suspected of being an authentic and full-fledged Kershenbaum creation — and I have no qualms about ʽDoughnutʼ.
BACK TO EARTH (1978)
1) Just Another Night; 2) Daytime; 3) Bad Brakes; 4) Randy; 5) The Artist; 6) Last Love Song; 7) Nascimento; 8) Father; 9) New York Times; 10) Never.
On July 4, 1978, precisely at the moment that this humble (and thoroughly Godless) reviewer was turning two, Steven Georgiou officially changed his name to Cat St... that is, I mean, Yusuf Islam — because Yusuf happened to be his favorite Quranic character (I presume that young Steven had never read the Book of Genesis), and Islam happened to be his favorite religion, way more cool than Numerology even. After his newly discovered brothers in the faith convinced him that the career of a pop musician was spiritually incompatible with Allah, he took the decision to quit, but not before releasing one final album, because he still owed one to A&M records, and Allah is pretty strict and straightforward on the issue of paying debts, even ones owed in pop music cur­rency. Hence Back To Earth, a somewhat oddly titled, but perfectly valid record that puts a full stop to Stevens' musical career in the 20th century.
Given the circumstances, it would be unreasonable to expect a masterpiece, yet the album does not exactly sound like a throwaway, either. There is still some mild experimentation, a couple of instrumentals that exploit some new ideas, and, most importantly, there is no explicit feeling that the artist no longer gives a damn about whatever it is he is doing, which is curious considering that the album is totally not pro-Islamic: the closest thing to a religious anthem here is ʽFatherʼ, and even that one seems to be alternately addressed to God and to his real father, who ended up dying on the exact same day that the album was released. As it is, the album is neither too happy nor too sad, and if you were simply to judge by the quality and atmosphere of the songs alone, you'd probably never guess about the revolutionary changes that took place in Stevens' religious, moral, and everyday life in 1978.
On a relative scale, I would place the album below most of the classics, but, like, Izitso, above the meanderings of his 1972-1975 period. The country-tinged opener, ʽJust Another Nightʼ, is graced with a simple, but warmly touching piano riff and a classy, though unfortunately subdued, steel guitar part from Brian Cole; its lyrical theme, a thinly veiled letter of recognition and con­tempt to Mrs. Music Industry, is hardly new, but it is nice to observe how neither the words nor the intonations, let alone the gentle melody, harbor any demonstrative hatred. ʽLast Love Songʼ, according to Stevens himself, dealt with the critical backlash against his conversion — with another love metaphor, but a less interesting piano melody that is more suitable for a power ballad than a humble confession; nevertheless, the woodwind-imitating synth solo is a curious find, and the song never really crosses into power ballad territory from the threshold.
For the singles, Stevens chose the most hard-rocking track on the album (ʽBad Brakesʼ — more like Bad Company, to be honest, than Cat Stevens!) and a sentimental ballad, ʽRandyʼ, that sounds like a Phil Collins / Bernie Taupin collaboration and was probably released to confuse the audience: a gay love anthem from somebody who had just embraced one of the strictest anti-gay religions in the world? There'd be much more to discuss if the song were good, but, unfortunately, it isn't: too many sappy strings and a lazy coda that regurgitates clichéd ballad chord sequences. Once again, while the album as a whole still holds up as an artistic statement, the singles seem to be relatively shallow and boring creations, given an «objectively» commercial coating so that the label could get off Stevens' back.
At the same time, a track like ʽDaytimeʼ, with its careful mix of electric and acoustic pianos, acoustic guitars, and saxes, despite formally lacking the "Randy, oh my Randy" type of hook, produces a much better atmospheric impression; and ʽFatherʼ is acutely funky, with attractively grim interplay between bass and electric guitar that conveys a better sense of tension than just about anything Cat had done in the previous several years. Of the instrumentals, ʽThe Artistʼ is just a pretty way to spend two minutes in an elevator, but ʽNascimentoʼ, a collaboration with the horn section of Tower Of Power, is another experiment in jazz-rock, although this time with a strong disco flavor — the tune would probably never work on its own, and it is certainly nowhere near as futuristic as ʽWas Dog A Doughnut?ʼ, but it is still exciting, in a way, to hear the man engage in this strange passion at a time when body-oriented dance music should have officially been the smallest possible of all his concerns.
For the last paragraph of his musical testament, Stevens chose an ambiguous strategy again, writing another mixed-feeling letter to the world he was leaving behind: ʽNeverʼ may not be one of his best songs (not least because it lifts a key chord sequence from George Harrison's ʽBeware Of Darknessʼ to serve as the song's main melodic hook), but it is a suitably clever testament that still leaves him a way out ("I know there'll be another time... there's going to be another story") even as the door is closing shut. At least the man said his goodbyes in a quiet, humble, and polite manner, instead of giving us some overblown anthem or a goodbye-cruel-world style bitter curse. Then again, what else could you really expect?
Critical reaction to Back On Earth was predictably poor, because pop music industry usually does not take lightly to its idols choosing a religious path (and usually for good reason, might I add sacrilegiously); however, if the songs are to be judged on their own merit, without the accom­panying knowledge, I do not see what it is that would make this a particularly worse record than just about anything post-Tillerman — other than, perhaps, the subpar singles, but it's not like this was completely unprecedented for Cat, either. It is no Abbey Road, for sure: Stevens never went out on a limb to produce a sweeping musical testament for the ages, but then, he'd always been humble by nature, and his conversion should only have multiplied that humility. Yet when you put it under a microscope, it is very clearly a career-closing statement, and thus, an indispensable listen for all those interested in the spiritual and musical evolution of Britain's deepest soft-rocker... or was that Britain's softest deep-rocker? Whatever. After 1978 it all became irrelevant anyway — goodbye, Cat Stevens, hello, Yusuf Islam and his 50,000 edutainment records for little Muslim children.
AN OTHER CUP (2006)
1) Midday (Avoid City After Dark); 2) Heaven / Where True Love Goes; 3) Maybe There's A World; 4) One Day At A Time; 5) When Butterflies Leave; 6) In The End; 7) Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood; 8) I Think I See The Light; 9) Whispers From A Spiritual Garden; 10) The Beloved; 11) Green Fields, Golden Sands.
Yusuf Islam first went back to record-making in 1995; however, for a long time his records were purely religious affairs, mostly oriented at children and using spoken-word or poetry tracks with minimal musical accompaniment (percussion) that taught the little ones about the main principles of the Islamic faith, about the various accomplishments of the Prophet, and about the basics of suicide bombing (okay, not really, bad bad joke). We will not be discussing these records here; this is something you can do with your local imam or mullah.
However, by the time century 21 began rolling along, Yusuf apparently felt the urge to return to real music — and not just to begin writing songs again (something that he had still been doing on occasion during his years of retirement from the public eye), but to actually reboot his musical career. Whatever was the true reason behind that, we might never know, and «The Artist For­merly Known As Cat Stevens» might not understand it perfectly well himself, but considering that one major factor behind his quitting was a deep hatred of the music business, exacerbated by his religious conversion, it is possible that he — like many other people — eventually saw the situation in the 21st century, with its numerous indie labels and possibilities of making professio­nal recordings without the mediation of greedy music business bastards, as liberating. Besides, it seems that his son was constantly nagging him about getting back to music, and there's nothing like a whiny 21-year old kid with musical interests of his own to make your Dad real jealous.
Yusuf Islam went about it the smart way, though — thirty years of direct conversations with Allah are no laughing matter, after all. He set up his own record label, «Ya Records» (regular distribution was still handled by Polydor and Atlantic); credited the album to «Yusuf» rather than «Yusuf Islam» so as not to repulse or provoke Muslim haters (particularly those Muslim haters who are too ignorant to understand where the name Yusuf comes from); largely avoided direct references to his faith in most of the songs (although mid-Eastern motives may be found in some of the music, and Islamic symbolism is frequently detected in some of the lyrics); and actively promoted the album with a string of TV and concert appearances, pleasantly surprising audiences by the apparent lack of a kuffiyeh on his head.
The most pleasant surprise, however, was that he'd made some nice music. It would be unwise to expect that An Other Cup would consist of ardent religious preaching: other than a few uncom­fortable and somewhat ill-interpreted comments on Salman Rushdie, Cat-Yusuf had done nothing in those past decades that would permit to describe him as a militaristic zealot, nor was there any indication that, like Dylan in 1979, he'd embraced his new religion more with an idea to confuse and bewilder his followers than anything else. On the other hand, considering how inconsistent his music-making was in the Seventies and for how long he was not involved in music-making at all after that, how could our expectations be high for this comeback? My guess was: a few acous­tic-based sermons, parables, and allegories, delivered gently, peacefully, and in an instantly for­gettable fashion from a kind, friendly, and washed-out grandfather.
And it is a very pleasant surprise when, after such expectations, the very first song proves you wrong: ʽMidday (Avoid City After Dark)ʼ is, indeed, a gently and peacefully delivered acoustic-and-piano-based allegory, but it is anything but forgettable — a simple, but catchy pop song with very well-placed brass interludes (where the brass part actually fulfills the function of the chorus) and a brilliant mix of friendliness and sadness, every bit as affecting as anything the man had done earlier. To add to the surprise, Cat-Yusuf's voice has not aged one bit — in fact, it has only become more smooth and silky, closer in tone to the early Cat Stevens of 1967 than to the mid-Seventies rough-'n'-edgy Cat Stevens. And, in a way, I am more fond of this calm and serene Cat Stevens than the perturbed and hystrionic Cat Stevens of the mid-Seventies: now that he has alle­gedly found peace and is simply enjoying his ride on that train, he seems to have found a better balance between his inner spirituality and his musical arrangements (which, let's face it, had been quite timid and inadequate to reflect his inner turmoil, and frequently made me suspect that the turmoil itself was nowhere near as grand as he tried to picture it with his words and voice).
Somewhat disappointingly, ʽMiddayʼ turns out to be the highest point of the new album, as none of the other songs are as instantaneously memorable. But it sets the right vibe that is preserved for the entire record, ensuring that at worst, it sounds pleasant, inoffensive, and wise; and at best, the songs slowly grow on you, because Stevens has not lost his taste for cautious experimentation. Unfortunately, the most experimental of these numbers is ʽThe Belovedʼ, the only song on the album that is directly related to his faith — a hymn of adulation for The Prophet ("his mercy stretched from East to West / to every man, woman and child" — not quite what even the tradi­tional ahadith tell us, but at least for Cat-Yusuf, it's always about a peaceful message), inter­woven with mid-Eastern musical themes and vocalizing in a somewhat predictable manner. But on the other songs, he still continues to look for pleasant sonic combos, utilizing a large array of acoustic instruments — in fact, I think I prefer this remake of ʽI Think I See The Lightʼ from Mona Bone Jakon over the original, which was almost all piano; here, there is more tension created by the acoustic bass, and the organ doubling the piano adds more depth, while the newly added jazzy brass-heavy coda completes the song with a «glorious-epic» flourish.
It is less clear why he decided to revive the "heaven must've programmed you" bit from the ʽForeigner Suiteʼ, merging it with a new song (ʽWhere True Love Goesʼ), but I guess that anyone in Cat-Yusuf's place would have been tempted to insert a few self-referential pointers after thirty years of retirement. Another gesture that must have had a special meaning for him was covering ʽDon't Let Me Be Misunderstoodʼ — Cat-Yusuf, as you can easily see by perusing his website, is extremely sensitive to people forming various misconceptions about him (like, his daughters do wear the hijab — TRUE; he does not converse with women who do not — FALSE), and this dramatic, heavily baroque-orchestrated reading of the song is quite touching.
I would not go as far as to say that Cat-Yusuf has truly attained the state of one of those Sufi sages who, with their presence and devotion, may command respect even on the part of the staun­chest atheists. But on the whole, An Other Cup paints a very satisfactory portrait of somebody who has found internal happiness and peace with himself (not without occasional quirks), yet is not striving to jump out of his skin so as to show the world just how precisely happy he is (in con­trast to the old Cat, who was always jumping out of his skin so as to show the world just how precisely disturbed and unhappy he was). I expected to hear something either very boring or very irritating here — and got such a big surprise that I am even willing to forget some of the weaker ballads, and go along with a thumbs up. I'm sure even Mr. Salman Rushdie himself couldn't have anything personal against a friendly record like this — provided he did not know who the artist was, of course.