Sea and Cake
Oui
[Thrill Jockey]
Rating: 9.0
The Sea and Cake have never trafficked in revolutions. Those quick to decry a
foolish consistency forget that there is an angel in the details. An angel
of our better natures, let's say, urging the hard elegance over the easy noise.
To charge the Sea and Cake with rehashing the same album amounts to deriding
Monet for painting the same haystacks. Not only is it wrong, it has simply
missed the point. It's strange that an album as demure as Oui will
have such a bitterly polarizing effect; the skirmish over the fine line between
continuity and paralysis seem so irrelevant to the grace and sophistication
of this work.
The October 3rd release date already presents a small parable for Oui;
it's a day consecrated to Saint Radiohead. But superficially, the day marks
the release of two eagerly anticipated albums; it concludes a three-year absence
of serious studio output from both bands. By way of contrast, Kid A puts
its predecessors through the dream cuisinart; it turns oedipally on its forebears.
Oui, however, recalls past Sea and Cake albums like lost loves: fondness
tempered with regret. Some will search Oui for signs of the radical
innovation and disruption than lend Kid A its oneiric vitality, but they'll
search in vain. On the contrary, the studied affirmative of Oui is sober in
the face of the past, almost sad and not quite dreaming.
The Sea and Cake were born middle-aged, their respective musical puberties farmed
out among a handful of preceding bands. The self-titled debut always sounded
seasoned and precise. Its various musical styles are fused with such mastery and
deliberation that one would never have believed that the band was intended as a
one-off project. 1995's Nassau regressed into a newfound adolescence: Sam
Prekop yowled; John McEntire set aside the brushes for hard sticks; Archer Prewitt's
rhythmic strum dominated the album. Remember the sloppy jangle of "Nature Boy" or
the snaky garage fusion of "A Man Who Never Sees a Pretty Girl That He Doesn't Love
Her a Little," the churchy farfisa in "The Cantina?" But even amidst the regression
and brilliant irresponsibility of Nassau sat the shattering seaside dolor of
"Parasol," recalling an earlier clarity and virtually anticipating the grievous
composure of Oui.
The shrill yelps and jagged swing of Nassau and The Biz have faded into
memory. Electronics have come to play a greater role in the band's more recent output.
Whereas the electronic elements of earlier work never really moved beyond warbling
afterthoughts, The Fawn was virtually engulfed in twittering synths and subtle
machinery. The title track was perhaps the most artificial work of the band's entire
catalog heretofore: drum machine, synthesizer loops and the sweep of programmed
symphonics. The spontaneity of Eric Claridge's understated bassline served to single-
handedly save that track from seeming a pale recursive remix of itself. The jazz-like
spontaneity of earlier efforts was replaced with methodical studio construction. The
album was lovely but somehow artificial. The abysmal Jim O'Rourke-molested remix EP
follow-up, Two Gentlemen set new standards for warmed-over ambient pablum,
virtually anticipating the entire Casino Versus Japan discography and receding limply
into obscurity and dim regret. When was the last time you heard someone mention "The
Cheech Wizard Meets Baby Ultraman in the Cool Blue Cave?" Please.
Oui is less an apology than an awakening. A lesser band might have recanted
with knee-jerk speed, hooking a fistful of lite-funk Nassau-style tunes up to
the jumper cables. Instead, the Sea and Cake disappeared into painting and solo
pursuits, emerging three years later with Oui like the afternoon sun in your
eyes. They haven't revived the improvisational flex of their early canon; if anything
Oui is the most meticulously produced thing they've done. And the electronics
remain virtually omnipresent-- to strange effect, since the melodies are reminiscent
of the very low-tech jazz-croon of Sam Prekop's 1999 solo album. But nothing is taken
for granted. Intimacy reigns. The fact that it all holds together is astounding.
McEntire's drumming is inhumanly nimble, almost approaching robotics. Beneath the
boss-level video game music frenzy of "Afternoon Speaker," the effect is digital
clockwork. Prekop oozes, "Wasn't that a putdown?" ingenuously over Prewitt's incredibly
rhythmic lilt. It's pure synchronicity, but driven. The instrumental, "You Beautiful
Bastard," ruminates like late summer; the music exhales. Paul Mertens' faint string
arrangements meld with Prewitt's sighing wah-wah lines; Claridge's listless bassline
seems to stand in for the narrative.
While initially promising to be a predictable nod to vogue Brazilian music, "The Colony
Room" subsumes its hints of tropicalia into a rising chorus of Prekop's disjointed lyric
of fortune-cookieisms and found conversation: "Welcome to the top, well I thought so/
Bring it to an end, without hassle/ No disaster, I guarantee." The very Tortoise-esque
"The Leaf" fuses gamelan music with blue-eyed soul. Prekop's voice flutters out like
sweet cigarette smoke: "I'm waiting till the winter dies, skillfully." Again, "Two
Dolphins" flirts with tropicalia but subverts the sound with languid electronics and
McEntire's too-tight percussion. Prekop stage-whispers the line that could serve as
the motto for Oui:
"And I know that it sounds right, many miles away.
Paradox stay forever, celebrate this day."
Oui is stunning easy listening in recession, but up close, it's genius. The
production, the arrangements, the instrumentation, the electronics would sound cumbersome
in the hands of the unexperienced, but the Sea and Cake fuse these elements with economy
and care. If Oui doesn't erupt like an outright revolution, it's only because the
band makes it look it too easy. Great art doesn't always come like a shot heard round
the world. And maybe that's the mark of a truly brilliant work of music: it's explosive
inspiration masquerading as a lullaby.
-Brent S. Sirota