Skip to product information
1 of 1

redeye

Bright Eyes - Cassadaga (Remastered) Vinyl record

Bright Eyes - Cassadaga (Remastered) Vinyl record

Regular price $ 29.99 USD
Regular price Sale price $ 29.99 USD
Sale Sold out
Shipping calculated at checkout.

Once tagged 'rock's boy genius' by the music press, Conor Oberst turns 27 on February 15th and even without that in mind it's hard to listen to Cassadaga without hearing a newfound sophistication to the Bright Eyes sound. Producer, multi-instrumentalist and permanent band member Mike Mogis has crafted a swirling, euphonious record, at times bursting with bombastic confidence and country swagger, and at others loose-limbed and mesmeric. Trumpet and piano player Nate Walcott, a Bright Eyes player since 2003 and now the third permanent member, is responsible for the cinematic string arrangements.  

Other than a handful of live appearances and the release of a collection of B-sides & rarities, Bright Eyes kept mostly out of sight in 2006 after the busy 2005 which saw the simultaneous release of the sister albums Digital Ash In A Digital Urn and I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning. Should you have looked for them you'd have found them tucked away in various studios around the country. Recording for the first time outside of the Lincoln, NE studio belonging to Mogis, the Bright Eyes cast of players were busy in studios  in Portland, OR, New York City, Chicago and Los Angeles. The result is the band's most confident work so far, an album so full of soaring strings and female harmonies that it feels almost buoyant in comparison to previous releases. While many latched onto the  smattering of political commentary in 2005's I'm Wide Awake..., Cassadaga is less blunt in its depiction of youthful exasperation in the Bush era. References to Hurricane Katrina, holy wars and polar ice-caps may crop up, but they're buried  deep amongst the ruminations on life, love, history, death and the afterlife.

If I’m Wide Awake... was 'the New York City album', then Cassadaga is 'the America album', in which Oberst diaries his travels around the country and articulates his sense of history in the landscape. In first single 'Four Winds' he is 'off to old Dakota where genocide sleeps/in the Black Hills, the Badlands, the calloused East/I buried my ballast, I made my peace.' Cassadaga itself crops up in the same song. The town, a community  for psychics in central Florida, is visited in order to 'commune with the dead'. This wandering spirit is crystalized in 'I Must Belong Somewhere' a song which was already a staple of live shows by the end of the 2005. 'Hot Knives' is particularly spirited, bringing to  mind the true energy of a Bright Eyes show. Likewise, 'Soul Singer In A Session Band' - a rousing paean to an oxymoronic profession - enlists all of the elements which make the  Bright Eyes live band such a euphoric experience. 'Make A Plan To Plan To Love Me' is Bright Eyes at their most playful; a straight-up love long, replete with girl group vocals and Burt Bacharach strings. Oberst, the fumbling guitarist whose impassioned prose tumbles out under stark stage spotlights, is still recognizable in every track, but the songs are rich with elaborate production, cinema-sized orchestration and, at times, sprawling,  almost psychedelic, atmospherics.    

The line up of Bright Eyes players includes Andy Lemaster (Now It's Overhead), Ben Kweller, Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, Janet Weiss (ex-Sleater Kinney), Jason Boesel (Rilo Kiley), John McEntire (Tortoise) M.Ward, Maria Taylor and Rachael Yamagata. 

Track Listing

01 Clairaudients (Kill or Be Killed)
02 Four Winds
03 If The Brakeman Turns My Way
04 Hot Knives
05 Make A Plan To Love Me
06 Soul Singer In A Session Band
07 Classic Cars
08 Middleman
09 Cleanse Song
10 No One Would Riot For Less
11 Coat Check Dream Song
12 I Must Belong Somewhere
13 Lime Tree

Shipping & Returns

Shipping
We ship within two business days when possible. Remember, Media Mail is cheap but gets very little love from the postal service. Expect long waits and few tracking updates. We recommend USPS Priority or UPS Ground.

Returns
Thirty days if unopened, you pay the postage to us. If the item is defective or the delivery person folded it, please reach out ASAP for us to fix the issue. After 30 days, you own it!

Care Instructions

Keep away from the sun.

Never place it next to a Justin Bieber record.

Treat it like your grandma, you know if she was a record. Know what I mean? Tender care, don't talk back, and never interupt during Murder She Wrote. Wait - what the hell was I writing about-

View full details