Sea, Cake, Wind, Stars, and the Eastern Bloc
Everybody's favorite summer sauce addicts return with Everybody, yet another bliss inducing offering from Chicago's finest, The Sea And Cake. Windy City blues be gone, The Sea And Cake motor like Neu! mashing Yeah Yeah Yeahs, their simmering songs and streamlined grooves about as summer stunning as it gets. Time flies, and with it, Sea And Cake's dependence on the overt bossa nova pulse of past albums, here replaced by bouncy disco doughnuts ala Boz Scaggs' Silk Degrees ("Middlenight"), Pet Sounds wormholes ("Transparent"), and beatbox chatter ("Lightning"). But as always and of course, the center of The Sea And Cake lies in the enchanted plucking and cooing of Sam Prekop. Not since Antonio Carlos Jobim sang lush odes to Ipanema girls and Corcovado has a vocalist conjured such ethereal savoir faire, grace and bittersweet languor. One might question Prekop's manliness, his rounded cajones in the face of so much testosterone fueled adolescent product (this site and elsewhere), or you could simply bask in his glow, his rhythmic strumming, his easy cadence/coo and iridescent melodies. Let's not forget John McEntire, drums; Archer Prewitt, guitars; and Eric Claridge, bass. The Sea And The Cake retain the forward motion trajectory that has filled every album from Nassau (‘95) to Oui (‘00), though Everybody spreads the net wider in psychedelic earth movers like "Left On" (calling Amon Duul!), and today's MP3, "Crossing Line." Piled like thick cream atop a buzzing guitar riff and whispered vocals, the song effortlessly crams rock riffage against the need for "a little smile" and disco handclaps, the sum effect like a Motor City drive in an ancient muscle car covered in hot fudge. Post rock powder puffs anyone?
The Sea and Cake: "Crossing Line" The Sea and Cake: "Crossing Line" (MP3, 2:46)
Speaking of Krautrock, The Zincs almost go there in "Head East, Kaspar." Resurrecting the ancient Hammond B3 organ (or is that a Farfisa?), a plug-in no doubt, The Zincs work the hoary instrument into the intro of "Head East, Kaspar," momentarily alluding to Faust, Harmonia and Cluster, before settling into a lilting tableau of dreamy "sha na na" harmonies, a tom tom drenched beat and gentle coffeehouse torpor. Trainspotters, think Eric Matthews, The Cure, Robyn Hitchcock.
The Zincs are mostly the work of one man, the England born Jim Elkington, who relocated to Chicago, recorded and released Dimmer in 2005, followed by Black Pompadour, from whence "Head East, Kaspar" is taken.
What is it with Chicago and dreamily laconic deliveries, anyway? Tortoise, The Sea And Cake, Bumps, and now The Zincs all follow to one degree or another the need to soft pedal styles, as if winter holds them close even as the summer heat soothes. Chilled to the bone, obviously, these boys hold fast.
*The Zincs: "Head East, Kaspar" (MP3, 4:04)
