CASSIUS

An evening meeting of the Lokerse Feesten Committee, one Tuesday in February. Shouting and commotion send the glasses clinking; tongues are even sticking out, and we could swear we saw a middle finger. The chairman of the Lokerse Feesten Food Committee even went so far as to throw a soup plate. That evening, there was just one item on the agenda: which artists are we going to book for Friday 31 July, Diana Ross’s day, so to speak? We heard all sorts of suggestions, from Manowar to Sergio, from “isn’t there another Beatle still alive?” to Belgian Asociality. Until someone calmly walked over to the turntable, pulled a record out of the sleeve, and a second and a half later, the enchanting sounds of ‘Cassius 1999’ transformed the meeting room – which had only just been buzzing with excitement – into a dance and party paradise.  All people did indeed become brothers in an instant. ‘Cassius 1999’ appears on the LP “1999” (from the same year) by CASSIUS,  and that album is one of the absolute  key records of the already impressive French wave that swept through our clubs in the second half of the 1990s. Poor Moses is probably still wandering around Mount Sinai somewhere, with two tablets on his back on which the Ten Commandments of the French Dance Wave are carved. Cassius stands there proudly alongside the likes of Air, St-Germain, Daft Punk, Etienne de Crécy, Motorbass and Dimitri From Paris. All legendary artists who continue to inspire people to this day in countries overseas where knowledge of the French language is limited to ‘Oui’, ‘Non’ and ‘Hurluberlu’.  Apart from chefs in the global Food Departments, they’re also familiar with the assiette creuse. Cassius’s French house sound ultimately lasted for five official records, until the tragic passing of genius Philippe Zdar in 2019. It is Boombass (Hubert Blanc-Franchard) who occasionally carries the torch with the sacred flame across the border to plant Cassius’s unique sound on a stage somewhere and keep the crowd dancing for an hour until they beg for a track by The Supremes. Yet another legendary name on the Lokerse Feesten line-up?  It’s as a Texan says in his best French: hell yeah, nondedju!