Cassidy

Bows | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (November 4, 2011)
• Original Release Date: 2001
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Too Pure
• ASIN: B00005AQR2
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #234,025 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com's Best of 2001

Luke Sutherland, the mastermind behind Bows, really knows how to drape a gauze of sparkling sensuality on top of his work. His second release, Cassidy, contains hazy, Spiritualized-sized orchestration, Gus Gus/Massive Attack-styled trip-hop, and a Low-like sense of minimalism. On Cassidy, guitars sound like harps, and hushed, breathy vocals (from Sutherland and guests from acts like Speaker Bite Me and Snowpony) become naked siren songs. Beats appear and disappear in vapor trails within the tracks. The overall sound may float near shoegazer, slowcore, and drum & bass, but the music comes in cloudy forms that change and lose shape once you try too hard to categorize them. Bows uses basic vocal and synthetic sounds to inflate the songs, making them rise to heavenly heights of narcotic pop, but the twinkle of bells and organs keeps the innocence level just as high. Cassidy is a dreamy record, one that brings all the aural comforts of Slowdive with the additional kick of the occasional beat to keep the disc moving. --Jennifer Maerz

Product Description

Although a fair percentage of the elements found on Bows' mildly disappointing debut carry over on Cassidy, it's a near-quantum leap from being occasionally great and rather uneven to thoroughly wonderful and fully luscious. The second album from former Long Fin Killie vocalist/multi-instrumentalist wonder kid Luke Sutherland's Bows project shows that the first wasn't just a purging of stray ideas, demonstrating he should have done whatever possible to keep his relatively standard rock band together. Oh no -- this rates as one of Sutherland's finest moments, a dream pop record with fluttering guitars, sighing vocals, swaying strings, and booming beats galore

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cassidy (4.5), July 12, 2003

By 

10ma (Terre Haute, IN USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cassidy (Audio CD)

The thing about Cassidy is that it's not that different from Blush. The only real difference I noticed from both CDs is that Cassidy has more female vocals and actually appears to be slightly softer than Blush. None of these things is really a bad thing, but they aren't necessarily good things. The tracks are still as charming, and still as different in comparison to most other CDs out there. The bad thing is that they lack individuality. One track seemlessly flows into the next, which normally is a good thing like in Boards of Canada's "Geogaddi" or Stereolab's "Sound Dust", but in Cassidy, it just makes them indistinguishible.

'Luftsang', the title track in Cassidy bears a striking resemblence to 'Big Wings', which is the title track in Blush. Granted, both tracks are awesome, but it just seems a tad identical. It's almost as if Luke Sutherland was rushing the CD in some way, but instead of sacrificing musical beauty, he ended up losing a sense of interest in each of the tracks. When he was in Long Fin Killie, his CD 'Amelia' had a spark. When he made the metamorphosis into the alias of Bows, there was another spark, but his follow-up CD ends up being a dull knife trying to penetrate the side. For those that didn't care for Blush, they probably wont care for this. And for those who loved Blush, they'll love this, just possibly a little less. Despite some of the problems, it still surpasses other CDs as far as the eye can see.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars BRILLIANT, GROUNDBREAKING DREAM-TEMPO POP....., April 18, 2002

By 

"fredofla" (LOS ANGELES, CA. USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cassidy (Audio CD)

...in the same spirit as Sutherland's BOWS debut "Blush", this courageous album solidifies his masterful leap in transforming the original darker intentions of triphop to chill-out and "lighten up" already. How? Well, he makes it all seem so easy by recombining only the finest blends of warmest world-grooves with its cooler counterparts born of ideas that originated in the realms of My Bloody Valentine/Cocteau Twins dreampop. Voila!!! Like magic, a little bit of heaven descends into the larger themes of emotional addictions and physical excess. "Cassidy" is the equivalent of finding an azure blue oasis right smack in the middle of urban anxieties. This music has tranformative powers....and will quickly have you in a state of aural transcendance and bliss. All the darkness that had pervaded early triphop bands like Portishead and Massive Attack is tossed into the cumulus outter-space of gamelan inspired bells and chimes decorating Sutherland's mystical, groove-laden sonic landscapes. The innovative beats and vocals that inhabit this rare collection of songs are, in a word, sublime. AN INSTANT DOWNTEMPO CLASSIC! NOT TO BE MISSED! GORGEOUS AND HEALING PARTY MUSIC!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars fantastic achievement, October 4, 2001

By 

W. Y. Yang "yalee2" (New Haven CT USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Cassidy (Audio CD)

ever since their debut cd "blush" this band has remained one of the best kept secrets in the music industry today and their sophomore effort "cassidy" is nothing less than stunning in terms of their superb ability to incorporate complex texture and rhythmic layers this band has found a unique voice that makes them stand out from the rest of the trip-hop/electronica bunch which is an acute sense of melodies and a wonderful mixture of atmosphere and substance to make this band a well-rounded musical wonder so long story short this is a fantastic achievement by one of the most under-heard bands on earth today and thank you for reading by the way don't forget to go out and get the cds by ALPHA they are brilliant.