Looking Back With the Sea and Cake

“We have in a weird way encapsulated our entire career,” Sea and Cake frontman Sam Prekop says of the band’s seventh album, “Everybody.” Released last month after a four-year layoff for the band, “Everybody” ranks among the group’s best, and Mr. Prekop is determined to capitalize on its current focus.In sticking so close to its trademark fizzled sound — funky bass lines, shimmering guitars, jazzy drumming — the Sea and Cake’s new record is like a reduction of the group’s best ideas, carefully brought together. Speaking by telephone from Chicago, Mr. Prekop explained how this came about, elaborated on what he’s been doing since 2003, and talked about why the Sea and Cake has never felt the need to reinvent itself.While in the studio to record “Everybody,” the group began listening “to a bunch of our old stuff on iTunes,” Mr. Prekop said. “Before this record I don’t think we thought about what we had done previously. It’s not like we were planning on reflecting back; it just came about naturally.”The effect, he said, is that the band’s older songs fit better into new set lists, which makes for more varied live shows and a more considered approach to songwriting. Mr. Prekop and his band will show New York what they’ve been up to when they play Webster Hall tonight.Much like his bandmates — guitarist Archer Prewitt, bassist Eric Claridge, and drummer John McEntire — Mr. Prekop’s approach to making music is imbued with a particular milieu. Formed amid the fecund independent and experimental musical climate of mid-1990s Chicago, the Sea and Cake is an illustration of how vibrant, avant-garde jazz influenced younger acts created a new, innovative sound. As history, the period is Byzantine to say the least. There weren’t so much bands as collectives. Mr. Prewitt got his start with one of these groups, the Coctails, while Messrs. Prekop and Claridge were in the pioneering 1980s indie act Shrimp Boat. Both bands collapsed around the same time, and finding Mr. McEntire was a natural choice, as he was and continues to be a participant in dozens of Chicagoland projects.Between Sea and Cake albums, Messrs. Prekop and Prewitt have nurtured solo careers, releasing albums and touring together amid other projects. Of late, Mr. Prekop has turned to photography, and this summer he will release a collection of his work. Mr. Prewitt, meanwhile, writes and illustrates books that are published by Drawn & Quarterly.The unifying factor in the band’s early days was a certain headiness, a sort of smug, “Look what we figured out how to do” arrogance, which, musically, was a joy to behold. Today, even if “Everybody” marks a maturing beyond such youthful precocity, it still combines the gleaming guitar-drum cookies of the band’s 1995 album “The Biz” with the electronic flourishes of its 1997 effort “The Fawn,” and the studio tricks of the group’s most recent record, 2003’s “One Bedroom.” There is an essential formula adhered to throughout.“We work within our limitations,” Mr. Prekop said. “It’s all we know how to do — to play how we play. And we’ve never really been interested in tossing out all those things that we’ve figured out. I don’t think we could have changed guises and had it be terribly useful. I think if we felt that we had tapped it out we would quit.”That’s why, before the Sea and Cake returned to the studio to make “Everybody,” Mr. Prekop wasn’t so sure there was an album to make. “After this four-year break and before we started, I was wondering whether we still had it as a band. And to my surprise it readily snaps back, this reflex that comes from being a band for so many years.”That reflex produced “Everybody,” which, predictably, has been criticized by some for mimicking the band’s past work. But the Sea and Cake’s ability to continue shining in Chicago’s ambitious scene rests in large part on the pleasure inherent in hearing the band finetune this near-perfect prescription, again and again. To do this requires a considerable amount of intent. Mr. Prekop understands that the heart of this music is in the instrumentals, and while soulful melodies remain a defining trait of the Sea and Cake’s intricate songs, his lyrics rarely delve deep. This is no accident. As Mr. Prekop explained, “We get the idea of the music together before I figure out what I’m going to sing. It’s sort of a backward way of doing things, but I never wanted the music to be subservient to the vocals.”Now, on tour and just out of the studio, Mr. Prekop says the Sea and Cake is planning still another album for the fall “to take advantage of whatever momentum we’ve got going.” And they’re not likely to reinvent the wheel now: “One of the reasons for making a new record sooner than later is because we probably won’t be in that mode again.”Which is to say, they won’t be listening to their previous albums forever, but they like where they have taken them.The Sea and Cake perform tonight at Webster Hall (125 E. 11th St., between Third and Fourth avenues, 212-388-0300).

Looking Back With the Sea and Cake

Looking Back With the Sea and Cake

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