Music for everybody

Every time a new album from The Sea and Cake comes out, it's like a breath of fresh air. Or better yet, it's the perfect soundtrack for road trips, dancing around to...& if that's not enough, the summer months fast approaching!!

Everybody, their first release after a four-year hiatus, has definitely been worth the wait. Not only have TSAC remained true to creating the perfect indie-rock soundtrack to summer but they have continued to make music which is breezy, dreamy & danceable all at once. Even the album title itself is self-explanatory when it comes to explaining who The Sea and Cake made this music for.

For roughly 15 years now, Chicago's indie-rock stalwarts have been masters of great songwriting & songcraft, and Everybody is further proof of their accomplishments. At the same time, it's testimony of The Sea and Cake's longtime strengths working in their favor: guitarist/vocalist Sam Prekop's breathy croon & delivery are still intact; the guitars of Prekop & Archer Prewitt strumming merrily along over the telepathic rhythm section of bassist Eric Claridge and drummer John McEntire (who also plays drums/keyboards/etc. with Chi-town's other post-rock darlings & TSAC's fellow labelmates, Tortoise). And the playing of Claridge & McEntire are equally powerful, further solidifying their claim as one of indie-rock's most awesome rhythm sections around, period.

Yet, to quote an old maxim, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." What hasn't changed?
-the number of songs (10)
-the above stuff I mentioned about TSAC in the previous two paragraphs
-the cool front cover & photo art (done by Prekop himself, another one of his outstanding extracurricular activities)

What has changed? Everybody runs just over 36 minutes (as opposed to the usual TSAC release average of 40 minutes) but this brevity is also a benefit upon further listens: this album is one of TSAC's most direct, most straightforward sounding releases to date. Not only are The Sea and Cake getting more to the point; they also are living up to Thoreau's words, "Simplify, simplify." Great examples of this can be heard on "Crossing Line," "Coconut," "Exact To Me," & elsewhere, where the fab foursome of Chicago's indie-rock community deliver music that is kept simple, more stripped-down, minus the bells and whistles. And The Sea and Cake are still capable of going off into jamming mode as "Left On" readily confirms.

And instead of McEntire manning the boards for this recording (a longtime specialty of his; however, he did the finishing touches on this album back @ his home base in Chicago, SOMA Electronic Music Studios), the honors of recording Everybody went to Brian Paulson & with it the change of venue (up @ Benton Harbor, MI). The end results of this switch are not only a good call with all parties involved; this also gives Everybody a more warmer, immediate feel, reminiscent of its predecessors from 1995, Nassau and The Biz.

Picking up where they left off with 2003's more pop-oriented One Bedroom and Prekop's awesome 2005 solo release Who's Your New Professor, The Sea and Cake have truly created music for Everybody, that much is for sure - & this latest release is the best of both worlds from the above albums: danceable, breezy, dreamy...everything you could ever expect from The Sea and Cake & much more. If TSAC hasn't turned heads already, their latest release could do the trick. For The Sea and Cake has made a statement worth remembering in their roughly 15 years of existence, one that is going to endure for both new & longtime fans alike.