The Cat Empire Return Home To A World Music Award

Sydney, AU (EMI MUSIC AUSTRALIA) - It has been another busy year for the 6 piece, who started 2006 with a surprise performance on The Commonwealth Games Opening Ceremony Stage, introducing the Empire to a televised audience of 1 billion people worldwide.
The music from that event became the limited edition release CITIES -The Cat Empire Project, which last night won the WORLD MUSIC ARIA AWARD.

Despite numerous nominations over the years, in categories as diverse as ROCK, URBAN, WORLD and others, this is the band's first ARIA win - which just goes to show that the industry still hasn't quite worked out where to place them.

The band (who are touring North America at present) are happy to continue to elude classification. They don't necessarily class themselves as a world music band, but were proud to receive the WORLD MUSIC award for this particular album.

'CITIES was written as a commissioned piece of music to play athletes from over 80 countries into the MCG at the Commonwealth Games. The songs and instrumentation were very deliberately written/chosen to reflect each region, so it did become a world music sound scape'. They teased 'we will be making a new album next year, so it remains a mystery as to what category we will land in next'.

The band will this week celebrate their 500th show in 5 years. Over 50% of those shows have been overseas. Their recent tour of Europe, North America and Asia included over 45 sold out headline shows and festival performances, consolidating their reputation on the international touring circuit. But The Cat Empire are most looking forward to touring Australia again for the first time in a year.

'After months away in crazy places, we want to head back to the venues we know and have had great times at in the past' said Felix. 'The band is playing really well at the moment, so we are looking forward to hitting some outdoor venues, bringing along some incredible guests, and will be playing some of the material from CITIES'.

The band will be touring with a Sitar player, The Empire Horns, and an international support.
80% of the tickets for the tour are already sold out.
Ticketing details at www.thecatempire.com