The Sea and Cake — Runner

Plain and simple: it's wonderful to be a Sea and Cake fan.  Especially these days.

Ever since the Glass EP, they have seemed determined to produce nothing less than absolute perfection.  I was disappointed by One Bedroom at the time, but time has revealed it to be the band's big turning point.  Everybody was the return to basics and rejuvenation that they needed.  And it's been balls to the wall clarity and streamlining ever since.

'Harps' is one of the band's attempts at being a dance-oriented combo.  But, dancey and triumphant as it may be, it's still undeniably them.  They have such a signature sound by this point, that even the most blatant attempts at "branching out" (for them) are amongst the most successful failures ever.  And make no mistakes, 'Harps' is one of their absolute best songs ever. 

But yeah: take that, contemporary radio.

At points, it almost feels like the band is just messing with us.  Be it the ambient outro vamp on 'A Mere', the straight acoustic folk rock of 'Harbor Bridges' (overall, probably the band's best outright and most straightforward song so far— seriously), the majestic evolution of the two-songs-in-one 'The Invitations' or the Neil Young-obsessed 'New Patterns', I really don't think these guys didn't have a good laugh at just how all over the place this latest album is.

Luckily for them —and for us— it's absolutely wonderful music. 

Having a hard time thinking of anyone that's currently better than them.

And just think: the Moonlight Butterfly was just a year ago.

It's so good, I can't help but laugh at points.

~Austin

Haha, they win!

The Sea and Cake — The Moonlight Butterfly

Either the band's shortest album yet or their best EP, the Sea and Cake is back and they've released another collection of songs that feels —yet again— like a breath of completely fresh air. While they've certainly done their share of branching out past their humble dual jangle guitar roots in their seventeen year career, with Car Alarm, they reasserted their prominence as one of the best jangle guitar bands around and this new one just coasts along on similar vibes.

The question of whether or not this is Sam Prekop's band is answered, as the title track here is a nod to his abstract experimental synthesizer revelation (last year's Old Punch Card), but it is so in a more streamlined way. It sounds straight out of the Old Punch Card sessions, but revised to fit the mode of the band. It's a sparkly soft synth instrumental that absolutely shouldn't work coming right after two charging washes of pure Sea and Cake pop magic —that would be the vintage super fast S+C opener 'Covers' and it's surprisingly psychedelic follow 'Lyrics' (which has an Eric Claridge bassline is so good and so melodic that you'd swear he was trying to be Peter Hook)— but instead, 'The Moonlight Butterfly' plays as a dreamy interlude.

The big shocker here is 'Inn Keeping' which, at ten and a half minutes, is the longest thing the band has yet recorded. At times, it almost feels like one of those 1980's "Extended mix" versions of songs that popped up on 12" singles that would awesomely drag a song out by letting each layer, each riff and each piece of the song build into the track every two or four bars and then just keep riffing away at the tune for another four or five minutes. I hesitate to call it one of the band's best songs just yet, but holy hell is it good. If nothing else, it showcases the Kraut Rock side of the band (which they have always possessed) in clear daylight. Sweet.

Sure, the heavy synthesizers from One Bedroom are back and all of them have a very similar sound to the tones heard on Old Punch Card (heck, even a fairly concise song like 'Up on the North Shore' ascends into layers of white out analogue bliss), but it's all filtered through the band's (rediscovered?) sense of longing melodies and their absolute perfection of layers of pure jangly harmonic euphoria.

It's easy to neglect a band like the Sea and Cake. And yet, they never let me down. Album after album, defiant change in sound, defiant non-change in sound or just flat out playing what sounds good, they have become something that is pretty much unquestionable in terms of criticism by this point. Sure, it's easier to sit back and admire at the pure beauty of their music, but it's also necessary to do that first, in order to fully understand why I love them for what they do.

Predictably outstanding.

~Austin

What's new?: 5.19.2011 Part Two

Some random bits and pieces. . .



Dire Straits — Communiqué (1979)

Also found this one on the cheap and figured I should go for it since I just got the first album the other day. I like it, though it does sound like outtakes from the first album, honestly. A bit more of a reliance on standard blues rock cliches, maybe. But, again, as on the first album, it's all filtered through that wonderfully clean (Telecaster?) guitar tone that I just love. Not much to say about this one, but the songs are good — just not as consistently good as the first album. Highlights for me are the building 'Where Do You Think You're Going?', the 'Sultans of Swing' rewrite 'Lady Writer' and the great mellow closer 'Follow Me Home.' Overall, I think this one may actually capture the mood of early Dire Straits even more than the first album, it just doesn't have the higher highlights.

The Sea and Cake — The Moonlight Butterfly (2011)
Review coming shortly. . .

David Sylvian + Holger Czukay — Flux + Mutability (1989)

I've had Plight and Premonition for years and have known about this one for even longer. I always swore up and down that I'd buy it if I saw it. Well, I never saw it. So, I finally just ordered a used one from Amazon. It's actually really good. The first track ('Flux') and its subtitle ('A big, bright, colourful world') are actually very representative of the album and are in very stark contrast to Plight and Premonition. It's a lovely little seventeen minute tune that features an expanded band with David and Holger being joined by Michael Karoli (guitar), Markus Stockhausen (flugelhorn, of course) and Jaki Liebezeit (percussiony stuff). Of the four longform pieces that came out of David and Holger's collaborations, I'd say it's easily the best thing they did. 'Mutability' (subtitle 'A new beginning is in the offing') is a slower and much more sparse affair. It actually reminds me a lot of the ambient stuff on Gone to Earth in that it has a basic chord progression that it follows faithfully, keeping the piece from feeling like it ever rambles or serves no purpose. It's actually very soundtracky, come to think of it. Where Plight and Premonition was scattered and somewhat dark, Flux + Mutability is full of peace and satisfaction. In a very short time, it's become my favorite of the two albums. However, I can see why both are relevant. Good stuff.

~Austin