Cassady

And Still… the new album from Cassady has taken three years to complete. Recorded in four different studios in Greenville, Illinois; Lake Hopatcong, New Jersey; and New York City, one might expect the album to sound transient, nomadic or even disconnected. It doesn’t. One song runs into the next and, while not a “concept” album; there is an ebb and flow that could be dubbed “aural cinema.” “There definitely was a strong sense of not wanting to release a “collection” of recordings but an honest to goodness album. A world of its own in between the headphones,” says Dave Burns, Cassady’s man behind the curtain.

Burns (who takes the moniker “Cassady” a la Pedro The Lion/David Bazan or Wilco/Jeff Tweedy) began recording in 2002, releasing an LP Savior Complex in the summer of 2003 featuring early versions of six tracks that appear in their final form on And Still… From there the album went through a process of re-recording, remixing, and adding on to (in the form of demo-cum-full-production-recordings done in Burns’ living room and kitchen as well as in the basement of a college friend’s parents’ house) in the following years. In the fall of 2004, Burns went into a studio in midtown Manhattan with long-time collaborator/friend/genius Paul Klimson to serve as engineer, mixer, master-er and eventually co-producer.

The songs on And Still… benefit from the extra time and care. Six songs on the album: “This Feels Like It Now,” “Crushed By A Dream (#4),” “Tired Of Luck,” “Chorus,” “Just Concentrate,” and “Blessed Silence” appeared on Burns’ 2003 LP. These tracks are all very guitar heavy and all feature the bombastic drumming of Thomas Vaughn, the pulse behind Cassady’s previous incarnation, the hard-driving Vaughn. While Burns kept elements such as the drums and guitars from these earlier sessions, he was able to re-record other parts, including vocals and bass [recorded by former Cassady member Shane Bordeau], with better equipment and fresh inspiration. “I felt like the versions of those songs [that appeared on Savior Complex] were incomplete. They were the songs I really loved off of that album and thought that I could do them better justice. Plus, I didn’t have Thomas and I couldn’t get any better than those drum tracks!”

The other five songs on And Still…: the lilting “…Esperanza (or, A Beginning);” “Song For Elliott” (a eulogy for the late singer/songwriter Elliott Smith); “Just Leave You;” “The Kitchen Song;” and the orchestral-lullaby-meets-acid-trip album closer “New York Burning” provide more electronic and acoustic elements that contrast with the drum-heavy guitar driven songs.

Burns credits his current Thursday night residency at La Negrita, a lounge in upper Manhattan with allowing him to take the creative chances with the newer songs. “I think that having a weekly chance to play a lot of these songs – learning them so well that I get sick of them and need to try something new or risk cutting them – really brought a confidence to explore” says Burns.

And Still… showcases an artist in transition. The great shift that is the post-college-twentynuthin’-winter-of-discontent-that-no-one-warned-me-about stage of one’s life. This is a stage of poverty, anxiety attacks, crude realizations and melodramatics. These are the years when you realize that not only is everything you ever learned wrong, but that you never even learned half of what you need to know. Combining this with the chaotic sensory-overload beauty that is New York City, Burns translates his reality into soundwaves.