The Sea and Cake - Glass EP
(Thrill Jockey)
After a two year hiatus, some received The Sea and Cake's 2003 album One Bedroom as, ho-hum, more of the same. I received it as, kick ass, it's about time they got around to making more of the same. Back in love with being a band, The Sea and Cake reconvened after the release of One Bedroom to record four new songs for this EP, also packed with three remixes and a video file. As a response to the ho-hummers, the band throws a few more experimental curves on this release. "Traditional Wax Coin" is a blend of sparse piano from Archer Prewitt and dense drums from John McEntire, with no guitar or vocals. It's more like a Gastr del Sol song than a The Sea and Cake song. "To the Author" continues this experimentation by giving two takes of the same song. The first take is spritely and easy-going disco, and the second take is more intense, with a fuller bass and denser drums, with Prekop giving the lyrics a more condescending tone. The other new track, "An Echo In," is no experiment though. It's just a rockin' song, and a very nice one. The remixes here are pretty pointless. Stereolab makes McEntire's rigid beats arythmic and loopy, Broadcast turns Claridge's awesome bass playing into thick, ugly pure tones, and technoist Carl Craig turns The Sea and Cake into rave music. While the remixes on the Two Gentlemen EP, in the style of the "DJed" 12"s, really reconstructed The Sea and Cake's music into completely different works, here we just get tom foolery and fuckupmanship. The new songs make this EP a nice nugget for the fans, but the undevoted shouldn't bother.
|
