*** The Sea and Cake

OUI

(Thrill Jockey)

"Try me, so tender," Sam Prekop sighs on the gently loping "Everyday," a lightly treading track halfway through the Sea and Cake's fifth album, Oui. Not a particularly striking piece of prose, but it sums up the inviting, wistful, fey mood of this Chicago art-rock indie supergroup. It's been three years since the Sea and Cake's last full-length, but the quartet's core sound hasn't changed. The fanatically clean guitar tones, breezy bossa nova sway, wiggly analog keyboard noodles, and breathy pop songcraft are still around, though Oui sounds less overtly electronic than its predecessor, with Tortoise drummer John McEntire focusing more on reggae rim-shot accents than on control-board soundsculpting. The lush string and horn arrangements are a new touch: "Seemingly" is an indie geek's conception of Barry White's orchestral bump-and-grind, and the woodwind-laced outro of "The Colony Room" takes a page from Burt Bacharach's saccharine soul. Prekop's drifting cadences and oblique lyrics are far from direct, but the soft-spoken frontman has a way with melodies -- they remain long after the music has floated away.

-- Michael Endelman

(The Sea and Cake join Broadcast downstairs at the Middle East this Monday, November 13. Call 864-EAST.)