The Sea And Cake
The Fawn

I imagine many of you know the site LastFm, "the world's largest online music catalog, with free music, videos, images, charts, artist biographies, concerts, and online radio as well as social network," how to use it and what its purpose is, but perhaps not everyone knows that before its birth (dating back to 2005) there was another site theoretically reserved only for the American market that had the exact same function and was very subtly called "Pandora" (internet radio). Probably not everyone knows that the link at the time was passed to us by a prehistoric user of Debaser - currently no longer present on the site - and that I immediately registered through the insertion of a fake zip code that was supposed to belong to the USA. Subsequently, the registration method changed by identifying the IP address to access the site, thus excluding me from listening and from the entire site, albeit apologizing for the novelty of the limitation. It was indeed a hard blow because, through its database with over 400 cataloged genres, I could discover a myriad of groups completely unknown to me and absolutely suited to my musical tastes.

Now I don't remember what was the means that led me to discover by chance the band I write about today, probably I was requesting a list of musicians similar to the Chicago group Tortoise, but what I remember very well was the wonder upon opening Pandora's box in learning of the existence of the very delicate and refined The Sea & Cake for whom there are no reviews in our database. So here I am, once again fueling the myth that Fosca particularly likes "soft" music as if I don't have a rocker soul, even if not black, at least a bit gray.

Anyway, The Sea & Cake [whose name arises from a misunderstanding about the title of a post-rock song by Gastr del Sol (by Jim O'Rourke) titled "The C in cake"] is a pop group with rock influences and especially jazz from Chicago in the early '90s with eight CDs to their credit, the latest of which was released in the near 2008 ("Car Alarm"). The band consists of Sam Prekop, vocals and guitar, Archer Prewitt, vocals, guitar, and piano, Eric Claridge, bass and synthesizer, and the multi-instrumentalist, producer, and sound engineer John McEntire, here devoted exclusively to drums and percussion but mainly noted for his certificate of origin from the aforementioned group, Tortoise, with whom he carries out a parallel project. And that in itself is a guarantee.

"The Fawn" is the beautiful work of 1997 that combines a fresh and multicolored very easy pop with more specifically electronic sounds through the use of samplers and drum machines but mediating and combining it all with their most characteristic and distinctive jazz or post-jazz style as it is sometimes defined, thereby characterizing their personal style. A style that is also evident in the choice of their covers, which usually come from Prekop's creative photographic flair or Eric Claridge's paintings.

The CD opens with "Sporting Life", a peaceful track, a breath of fresh air that will immediately catapult us into what is the general atmosphere of the CD, an atmosphere of serenity with a growing groove of liveliness where the slightly jazzy rhythm of drums and paced bass supports flutes, synthesizers, and very soft vocals. And I already feel like going out and staying in the open air and checking if the sun is shining.

Far from giving you a track by track summary (which no one can stand), I can instead tell you that this CD puts you in a good mood, it has a sound and a mood that is good for the spirit, that "feels" like spring and of fresh and light thoughts. The voice is always delicate, never reaching excellent ranges but always perfectly in tune with the melody, the acoustic guitars and the bass stand out from the rest of the instrumentation but without overshadowing the other instruments. There is an air of harmony in general, of ethereal and dreamlike sounds where virtuosity is not lacking, thanks mainly to the jazz turns of some tracks (like for example "Civilise").

The tracks I particularly love from this work are the already mentioned "Sporting Life", the beautiful title track (it seems you can really see the sleek-furred fawn in context with the progression of the Synth), the very delicate "Rossignol", an instrumental musical carpet of arpeggios and syncopated rhythms, and "Bird and Flag" with its simple bass line and guitars that make you want to dance. There are distinctly pop episodes ("The Argument") and much more melodic ones like the ballad "Do Now Fairly Well" which excellently closes the work.

Last curiosity: John McEntire as a producer has worked not only with his Tortoise and The Sea and Cake but also with Smog, Stereolab, and Broken Social Scene... I would have liked to add links and samples but I couldn't...

I discovered the sea and the cake only 3 years ago but I haven't left them since.

In this warm autumn, I might review something more rock, but today, today definitely not.

Enjoy your listening and relax.