The Sea and Cake

• HorsePower
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Sep 28, 2011

The Real Glimmers Of Autumns

Words by Sean Moeller, Illustration by Johnnie Cluney, Recording engineered by Patrick Stolley

The weekends aren't quite the way that they used to be. The people we're hanging around with are the same as these new weekends. We're sometimes not quite sure what happened or where it all went. We could be speaking or thinking about time or we could be thinking about our youth, our former good looks, our confidence, our wife or girlfriends, our courage, our money, our sanity. Man, the list can go on for quite some time when we get into one of those old man, contemplative funks that warps us back to those times that we thought were better, even if they really weren't. We're never going to be convinced though. We've got it in our heads that things were mostly for the better in those years that we recall with our own impressive fogginess. We were better people. We were more fun to be around. We were less grumpy all the time. We were more attractive. We had more energy and we had fewer worries. There were also fewer things that depressed us. The great thing about listening to a Sea and Cake album is that we're able to pass through so many of these different phases throughout the course of the collection. We're able to charter our ways though the recognition of some of these feelings we're currently having about the lessened state of our virility as well as the lessened power still held in our bodies. We're not sure where it all comes from or if that's really exactly what we're hearing, but we have a hunch that it is. We're given a chance to just wade in these waters and to see the reflections in the mirrors and to stare at them long enough - look holes through them for an extended amount of time - that the reflections become unrecognizable and all that we see is a form of a being, some guy. It's the form of a person that we're not afraid of. It's someone or the shell, maybe some of the guts, of someone that we were expecting to come around at some point. A lot of the time though, we're surprised that he came around so soon. We don't mind the company though. What we hear on Sea and Cake records are Sam Prekop, Archer Prewitt, John McEntire and Eric Claridge playing songs that hold these pieces of new life up for a close look. They are pored over with a sharp eye and a need to get to know them better, where they came from and what their intentions are. They often feel like the autumns of good times and sometimes feel like the sober new leases on life that we're owed every so often, when we've been dealt more than enough raw hands. The skies open up sometimes and the rains come. We wonder what's wrong with the young people, the kids, and we wonder what's wrong with the old people, ourselves included. We then see the glimmers of light and the real autumns come back. We look upon them favorably, if skeptically, and we see how long this spell will last.

The Sea and Cake Official Site
Thrill Jockey Records

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