Cassius: Au Reve : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

French producers BoomBass and Philippe Zdar improve upon their debut album's cheesed-out tribute to disco with a refined collection of intelligent house, soul, and hip-hop. Au Reve is a playful affair that successfully fuses the duo's love of sample-based dance music with live instrumentation and guest vocalists. By embracing the organic without shunning the mechanical, Cassius is able to sustain a warm, consistent tone throughout a disc that experiments in many diverse musical styles. Highlights include the loopy album opener "Hi Water," and "Thrilla," a collaboration with Wu-Tang's Ghostface Killah that comes off as a semi-ironic ode to the dancefloor, pop-rap of the early 90s -- albeit with vastly superior mic skills (my apologies if you're reading this, Freedom Williams). Best yet is the soulful summer single "I'm a Woman," where veteran house diva Jocelyn Brown belts out one of the catchiest hooks in recent memory.

(E. STEUER)
(October 1, 2002)