|
|
|
Ohhhhhhh, how I love The Sea & Cake! They're definitely one of my favorite bands ever ever ever!!! Oooh, and this CD is soo good!!!!!
So, this new CD finds those dreamy boys from Chicago adding a new electronic-dance-beat mix to their jazzy tunes. Case in point, the amazing David Bowie cover of "Sound & Vision", and actually, I just learned the "lower-than-low" vocals I originally reported on are courtesy of John & Frank Navin, of The Aluminum Group. But truly, the first time I listened to this CD, I thought it sounded soo Tahiti 80. And then it came on the radio one afternoon, and I was like, "Wait...this sounds familiar. Oh, it's Tahiti 80...now, wait!!! It's The Sea & Cake!!!" So twice the Parisian Dance-Pop band came to mind!
And "Hotel Tell" is a total synthesizer freak-out, all beeps and blips, but then Eric Claridge's cool jazzy bass lines kick in, giving it that Sea & Cake-flava. It's soo great!
But before I make it seem like they're nothing but synth-pop now, let me stress that they still retain their cosmopolitan cool. Like on the opening track "Four Corners" which is classic Sea & Cake with it's long instrumental opening and then Sam Prekop's amazing whispery vocals come in and the song gently echoes and fades in and out towards the end. Swooon!
Sigh, have I mentioned how much I love this band? ; ) (janice.01.03)
rating
oui • thrill jockey • 2000
Ahhh, The Sea and Cake...can anyone really trust what I'm about to write here, because everyone knows that
I had a long-standing crush on their guitarist/keyboardist Archer Prewitt for many, many years. But no, no,
you have to give the band credit for never including pictures of themselves on their CD's. By not distracting
you with their handsome faces, they can win your hearts with music alone. And this long-awaited release is
sure to sweep you off your feet with its jazzy, breezy romantic sound.
To give you readers a little background information: this Chicago-based quartet are one of my favorite bands of all time. And I o.d. on The Sea and Cake. If they were a drug, then I would be dead. I will listen to their albums for eight-hours straight during the workday, mixing in Archer's solo works and band leader Sam Prekop's older band, Shrimp Boat, in occasionally. I drive people crazy. (Don't I, honey? Mike is nodding his head...) But I must admit that when we first bought this CD, it was on the same release date (October 3) as the Badly Drawn Boy CD. And while I did give props to my boys by popping their disc in first, I didn't get that, uh..."high," to carry on the earlier metaphor. Yes, the songs are beautiful and wonderful, as all Sea and Cake songs are. But nothing grabbed me. And my anticipation had been building for so many years, that I was really expecting to be blown away. I guess you could say I felt like a Star Wars fan, who had waited 16 years for another film and became enthralled with the character of Darth Maul, only to find on opening night that he only has four lines in the movie and he gets chopped in half in the end. (Oops! Hope I didn't ruin it for anyone...)
Days later, I started playing Oui more, commenting to Mike, "Sure, this sounds like any of their other stuff, but hey, how do you improve upon perfection?!" But now that weeks have passed, and I've been getting drunk daily on their sweet, sweet sound, I have to say this is a bit different from earlier releases. The album has a more gentle tone to it, not as frenetic as say the dancey "Sporting Life" or the up-tempo "Jacking the Ball" from previous albums. The songs on this new release are softer, gentler ones like earlier tracks "Parasol" or "So Long to the Captain." John McEntire's dreamy vibes on "The Leaf" give the song such a summery wistful-ness. And Sam Prekop's vocals always melt my heart. He sings so soulful and so debonair, it's like watching a Jean-Paul Belmondo film. And the seductive whispery way he sings makes it sound like he's telling you a wonderful secret. Ohhh, I am so in love with this band, really, what more can I say? No matter what new band may come my way, I will always come back to The Sea and Cake in the end. (janice.11.00)
rating
related links
