Onomatopoeia album cover
Onomatopoeia

Butterfly Child

1997
Rough Trade

Butterfly Child’s first few singles were released by h.ark!, the label run by Rudy Tambala of dreampop pioneers A.R. Kane. That felt like the right context for the hazy, melancholy early songs of the late Joe Cassidy, the architect of Butterfly Child, but by the time of their expansive debut double, Onomatopoeia, Cassidy was looking further out and farther along; the epic sweep of Onomatopoeia re-cast him as an outsider visionary. The songs here are in perpetual swoon, whether woven from frail repetitions, or melodies as lush as Brian Wilson. But there are two moments that truly transcend: “Young Virgins Call For Mutiny,” where acoustic guitar and kalimba spin around each other, mesmerically, like garlanded wheels of fortune, and “Verte Ecole,” where Cassidy is hypnotised, dazzled, staring into the sun.

Jon Dale

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