The venerable Chicago band The Sea & Cake will release its 10th album in September. Singer/guitarist/songwriter Sam Prekop told me it will be called Runner. And ... well, that's about all he offered initially.
"I haven't actually listened to it," he said in a phone interview last week, promoting his July 21 RIBCO show with The Sea & Cake bandmate Archer Prewitt. "It's like a really fond memory already. I'm like: Why listen to it and attempt to take it apart?"
Prekop said he's in the "recovery period" for the album - the time between when it's finished and when he and the band need to learn the songs for live presentation and to prepare a new show. He said that at first he dreads reworking the songs for concerts, comparing the process to how most people feel about (and procrastinate with) taxes and homework.
But something with deeper roots could be contributing to his ambivalence about The Sea & Cake. The long-running outfit - which the All Music Guide called "the elder statesmen of impressionistic indie rock" - might just be inherently frustrating to Prekop's admittedly "restless" nature.
