Hi and Happy Saunday with Better Days from Marely Barch Barely March‘s debut album.
Good morning with Mardi Gras Beads from Wide Awake Parquet Courts’s new album. Have a nice weekend.
EXTRA! #30 for Special Diners from Punk Academics Cave Story‘s upcoming new album.
The Sea and Cake – Any Day
by Raquel Pinheiro
Any Day is The Sea and Cake first album in six years, written and recorded after bass player Eric Claridge left the band. Now a trio: Sam Prekop (vocals, guitar), Archer Prewitt (guitar, piano, vocals) and John McEntire (percussion, drums) – live Doug McCombs (Brokeback Eleventh Dream Day, Tortoise) plays bass.
Claridge may no longer be part of the band, but The Sea and Cake sound remains recognizable, even if in Any Day synthesizers were hardly used, guitar and organs being favoured. There is also a sunny, light, summery tone and lightness that is not always found in their albums, some of them more winter leaning.
A good example is the title track, a delicious pop song, highlighted by Paul Von Mertens’ flute and clarinet, punctuated by Nick Macri’s double-bass. Another the rosy bubble gum flavoured I Should Care. These Falling Arms, in the same vein as the title track one more piece of happy warmness. Archer Prewitt’s voice is pure delight in these three songs.
However, summer can, at times, have rainy, grey or chilly days. So does Any Day. Into Rain is like walking under gentle falling water on the seaside when the sun is setting; Occurs a misty Atlantic early morning and Paper Widown the portrait of someone watching the beach and sea because a storm broke and inside is cozy and warm.
The Sea and Cake probably never had an album that would define their name so well. Any Day has sea and cake in equal doses, making it a gentle, refined pop album splashed with ambient tones that provides a rich imagetic canvas.
The Sea and Cake play at Galeria Zé dos Bois, Lisboa, on the 27th.
(Thrill Jockey, 2018)
Good morning with Staring At The Sun, our Middle of the Week Song, taken from V Wooden Shjips‘ upcomig album. Have a nice day.
Hi with Ghost Boy from Spielbergs‘ Distant Star EP. Have a nice day.
Hi and Happy Sunday with Mini Stereos’ shake it up!
Good morning with Middle America from Sparkle Hard Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks‘ new album. Have a nice weekend.
EXTRA! #29 for Pasolini loves Sci-fi Jorge Ferraz’s new video taken from his new album Machines for Don Quixote …et… viva la muerte? that is out today.
Damien Jurado – The Horizon Just Laughed
by Raquel Pinheiro
The Horizon Just Laughed, Damien Jurado’ thirteenth album, following the trilogy composed by Maraqopa (2012), 2014 (Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son), Visions of Us On the Land (2016).
It is a less introspective, gloomy, and psychedelic album than his previous three. A more upbeat journey through the United States states and cities, with most addressed to a different woman. There is also space for writer Thomas Wolfe – Dear Thomas Wolf, Percy Faith and Ray Conniff, leaders of easy-listening orchestras and a few other characters in The Horizon Just Laughed eleven songs.
Choosing elegance, sophistication, and a dash of orchestration, without ever going too far, or allowing the songs to get lost in over- arrangements, so that is guitar and voice are always the guideline, Jurado’s manages what is probably his best album to date.
Impecable songs, pristine sound, song-writing craftsmanship at its best, and neat and clear production (in what is Jurado’s first self-production) in just under thirty five minutes of beauty, emotion, and well told, sang and played small stories make The Horizon Just Laughed a charming, enchanted album.
Mondo Bizarre Magazine 