Seed Cake On Leap Year

Cass McCombs releases 'Seed Cake On Leap Year', a collection of early, previously unreleased music recorded in Jason Quever's apartment in San Francisco while McCombs lived in Berkeley between 1999 and 2000. Everything that Cass McCombs fans have come to love can be heard on 'Seed Cake On Leap Year'. Even at that time, he mastered the graceful, floating melodies that feel as if they come from timeless songs of jukeboxes and transistor radios across America; as well as his profound, intricate way of using everyday language that can transform sincere truths into riddles. "Songs are sung every day, so what can I say to find my own way?" he declares in the opening line of 'I've Played This Song Before'. And with these words, he forges his own path, always rooted in tradition but facing the unknown. What is remarkable about 'Seed Cake On Leap Year' is how alive and raw these songs remain, full of insight and wonder, in dialogue with everything that is yet to come. There is an unvarnished honesty in this youth, and although this may be the most unvarnished honesty Cass McCombs has ever allowed himself on an album, these songs only deepen and enhance the mystery.