The
Sea and Cake
Everybody
(Thrill Jockey Records)
The Sea and Cake are back with Everybody, the
band’s first full length in just over four years. The
record finds the band continuing to perfect their singular
brand of dreamlike, hot-buttered pop music that sounds delicately
handcrafted, yet effortless all the same. Sheets of glowing
guitar tones skip along propulsive percussion underscored
by gentle, instrospecitve bass lines, all adorned by breathlessly
delivered lines of lyrical poetry. As always, the band is
made up of Sam Prekop (guitar and vocals), Archer Prewitt
(guitar), John McEntire (drums) and Eric Claridge (bass).
“It’s a rock album,” says Prekop, though
its certain that only The Sea and Cake could make a rock album
like this. Sam cites rock’s standard bearers The Kinks
as an influence on this, “the most straight ahead, even
'rootsy’ record we’ve ever made,” and one
hears it right away in the driving opener “Up On Crutches,”
with its dual guitars meditatively strumming and tolling like
bells. The band has focused on bringing more of a live sound
to Everybody, employing very little overdubs, and emphasizing
sudden contrasts within songs. “A live cut and paste
technique,” Sam says, borne out of the band’s
meticulous songwriting process. The band moves away from their
standard sound on a number of tracks here, including the jittery
“Exact to Me” with its percussive guitar lines
blending African highlife and rocksteady rhythms, and on the
intimately spare “Lightning”, a song that went
through several rewrites and, in the process, revealed the
title of the album. “It was such a hard won battle,
I don’t think most tunes would have stood up to such
abuse.” The result is a hauntingly simplified song that
serves as a fine centerpiece on this sprawling album.
For the first time in their 14 year career since their 1993
self-titled debut, the band has enlisted the recording efforts
of someone other than McEntire, this time calling on the talents
of Brian Paulson, a producer with a miles-long resume that
includes work with Slint, Wilco, and TJ’s own Angela
Desveaux, among hundreds of others. The change offered the
band a chance to perform more as a unit without McEntire pulling
split duties behind the board and the drumkit. “We came
together with a concentrated effort, as a band playing the
songs with total commitment,” Archer says. After rehearsing
the songs for nearly a month, the band holed up at Key Club
Studios in Benton Harbor, MI with engineers Bill Skibbe and
Jessica Ruffins. “A kind of rock-and-roll boot camp,”
Archer remarked of the studio known for its extreme isolation
and lack of distractions. “We knew we were there to
make an important record. We ate and slept there and did little
else.”
Outside of the band, the members of The Sea and Cake continue
their cosmopolitan pursuits apace. Sam released his second
highly praised solo album in 2005 and will have a book of
photography released by Press Pop Gallery in Japan. Archer
has a grip of solo recordings under his belt, and has earned
a reputation as a visual artist with his Sof’ Boy comic
published by Drawn and Quarterly Press. Eric has also garnered
high acclaim for his art and has a solo record in the works.
When not running Soma Studios, John McEntire is playing drums
with Tortoise and appears on the Exploding Star Orchestra
record released earlier this year on Thrill Jockey. The band
plans to tour both coasts in support of this record, and has
a few festival appearances in the works for the summer months.
The Sea and Cake have made a record for Everybody, and we’re
excited to bring it to you.
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