The Sea and Cake - The Sea and Cake (1994)
Chicago is home to a particular strain of post rock that largely evolved separately from what other parts of the world would produce. Tortoise was an early success of what you could do with the post rock sound, as was Gastr Del Sol.
This difference is partly because Chicago is also home to a very chill, very non-standard style of jazz and improvisational music that has a lot of similar qualities and a lot of crossover players with that post rock sound.
The Sea And Cake is a collection of several of these musicians from different groups around Chicago. This debut record was originally a one-off project but the group became an ongoing concern after this initial success.
The music is jazzy but not jazz. There’s a pleasant and breezy interplay between guitar lines, along with lyrics that aren’t super profound but fill in the gaps nicely.
In an era awash in noisy guitar music, this was a beacon of calm. Yet another genuinely new idea from the early 90s, prefiguring the indie rock explosion of the 2000s.
RIYL
If there’s a newer artist who seems like a genuine offshoot from this thread (even though he’s not from Chicago), it’s gotta be Will Westerman
