2012.07.27 The Sea And Cake - Car Alarm

Color: Black

Released: 2008, October 21

Label: Thrill Jockey

At present this would be the only Sea and Cake album I own on vinyl. And really, I can’t even take credit for it existing in my collection. Nope. The credit goes to my girlfriend. It’s odd that up until now I wasn’t really a huge fan considering I’m a huge fan of drummer John McIntire’s other band, Tortoise. I’ve mostly just had a mild interest in The Sea and Cake. But we were both out at some art gallery for some event and “New Schools” started playing over the gallery’s house system. She immediately recognized the band but wasn’t familiar with the song and I informed her that the band was still presently active and had probably put out something since the last record she had heard . The next time we found ourselves at a record store we picked this up. Wich then prompted her playing large amounts of the band’s previous output. I liked what I heard… but remained a casual fan. But deciding to listen again after hearing a song from their forthcoming tenth album has, I think, made things click for me. So, rest assured, it will not be much longer that this is the only piece of vinyl from The Sea And Cake that I own. Good thing for me that Thrill Jockey is putting out a bunch of reissues of their albums, too. Even though it’s so effed up that this where things are really clicking for me and not some earlier classic album (although I am also enjoying One Bedroom  a lot), Car Alarm is a really solid record (opener “Aerial” does a pretty good job of hooking you from the start). Love the halftone pattern as texture and fuzzy effed up lines that create the overall abstract image of the album cover. ‘also really dig how the lack of the halftone texture creates a band for the track listing to rest in on the back cover. Bright pink usually kinda scares me but like Collections Of Colonies Of Bees Birds album, it works nicely here.