Review: Samia - Bloodless
"Sometimes something that you expected to be there, but isn't, is more powerful than the thing you expected to be there - the lack of it."
Bovine excision was a phenomenon that began in the 1970s, when farmers started reporting their cattle inexplicably mutilated and completely drained of blood, with a surgical like precision leaving no mess behind. Throughout the decade, hundreds of cases of bovine excision were reported, and while the FBI investigated fairly thoroughly, they found no foul play present (much to the disbelief of farmers and locals). The phenomenon grew into a full blown conspiracy theory, with some blaming aliens or religious cults, and the FBI maintaining that it was likely the work of common predators.
For Samia Finnerty, she first heard the term when on a date:
It sparked a deep fascination within her, not necessarily with the cattle murder itself, but with the idea of this unsolved absence - where exactly was all this cow blood? The most remarkable thing about bovine excision was the lack of blood at the crime scenes, and the unsolvable way it was drained and then just disappeared. The most intriguing part of the mystery lied within its emptiness, and all the theories of where this blood could have gone. Samia began working this theme of unexplained disappearance into how she would present herself to others, and how much control we actually have over how others see us:
With that, the theme of Samia’s third album was born.