Cassius – Ibifornia

A glossy return, if slightly lacking in depth...

French producers Philippe Zdar and Boom Bass, AKA Cassius, have a tendency to disappear after a release. They debuted with ‘1999’ (in – you guessed it – ’99) and didn’t resurface until 2006 with ‘15 Again’. A decade later and the pair have dropped ‘Ibifornia’, which takes its name from the paradisiacal imagining of the joint isle of Ibiza and California.

With Pharrell Williams and Cat Power both guesting on the record, it looks like Cassius have upped their stakes. And in certain respects they have, yet parts of the record feel uninspiring and, quite frankly, a bit vapid. That being said, ‘Action’ draws for some funky, tropical sounds (wahey, welcome to Ibifornia!), and ‘Feel Like Me’ with Cat Power is probably the most engaging of the tracks. Nonetheless, this album unfortunately lacks the depth of both the Mediterranean and the Pacific.

5/10

Words: Milo Wasserman

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