Top Albums of The Decade #11 & #12
The Sea and Cake – Oui (2000) / Jim O’Rourke – Insignificance (2001)
I owe my awareness of the Chicago post rock/indie/improv scene to a little known two-CD compilation I picked up for cheap back in London called Chicago 2018…It’s Gonna Change. During a time when I was still largely only listening to beats and rhymes, Chicago 2018 pretty much expanded my musical horizons so to speak. What followed was a compulsive acquisition of anything Thrill Jockey and ‘Chicago-associated’ which yielded a whole bunch of albums that I’m still not sure why I bought in the first place (anyone wants my Rob Mazurek CD?). Oh, and a Tortoise T-shirt.
The best ones out of that stack of now dusty plastic jewel cases are Oui and Insignificance. Oui is simply a pop record first, a jazz-tinged indie rock record second. I have always been a fan of Tortoise’s John McEntire who dons multiple roles in The Sea and Cake, primarily keeping tight pace as the drummer and being responsible for the sparkly clean production. The mood is bright, breezy and unabashedly pleasant, a sort of Pet Sounds on a more minimal scale.
Insignificance is in the same vein but rocks out a little bit more, a far cry from Jim O’Rourke’s less accessible experimental noise records. His songwriting is amusing and whimsical with a significant dose of cynicism, the kind of lyrics you’d use for an ambiguous Facebook status. From ‘Memory Lame’ – “These things I say, may seem kinda cruel / So here’s something from my heart to you / Looking at you, reminds me of looking at the sun / And how the blind are so damn lucky”.
I always imagine walking around London aimlessly when listening to these two records, which is what I used to do anyway. Wearing my Tortoise T-shirt of course.
The Sea and Cake – ‘All The Photos’
Jim O’Rourke – ‘Memory Lame’