The feline Thriller

The gentle whirring of a cat’s purr has the power to mesmerize a human into a lump of pleasant existence. So why not give that experience back to cats with species-specific music made just for them, based on their biology and behavior? Composer David Teie theorized that cats would prefer sounds tailored to them over human music and even put it to the test in a scientific study. The results, published in the Applied Animal Behaviour Science journal, supported the hypothesis that cats “showed a significant preference for and interest in species-appropriate music,” meaning compositions in the same frequency range and with similar tempos used in their own species, versus, say, Metallica.

Music for Cats was released this spring, after Teie received more than $240,000 on Kickstarter to fund making the album. On some tracks, there’s the flutter of a purr, the soft musical mimicking of cat vocalizations with string instruments, a sparkling cascade of keys, airy birdsong and gentle droning. It’s atmospheric, kind of like Explosions in the Sky, but furrier.

See the Kickstarter video at www.musicforcats.com, where internet-famous felines listen and react to Teie’s songs, some looking bewildered (“Is that a bird? Where?!”), others blissed out (“Mom used to purr like this”); it’s both fascinating and adorable. The full album and individual tracks may be purchased on the site ($15-$20 and $1-$2, respectively), or humans may opt for a four-disc set, For the Times When You Are Away.