The Sea & Cake, the long-running Chicago crew who count Tortoise's John McEntire among their members, are set to release a new album Runner this autumn. As with their earlier albums, it will see release through Thrill Jockey on September 17th, and is a follow-up/companion piece to last year's Moonlight Butterfly. You can listen to 'Harps', taken from the album, below.

Across their near 20-year releasing career, The Sea & Cake have long been working within a similar liminal zone between rock and jazz as McEntire's other band, though with far more of an emphasis on pop song structures and a broader set of recognisable influences than Tortoise's longform instrumentals. Last year's ninth album The Moonlight Butterfly found them pushing their sound into more experimental regions, with extended instrumental passages and more prominent synth work.

Runner extrapolates outwards from that album, which began as synth sketches laid down by the band's Sam Prekop in his home studio. For its follow-up, the same songs were passed out to the other members to rework and reimagine, before the band reconvened to record the album at Soma Studios in Chicago.

"The Sea and Cake worked remotely for quite a while on Runner," says Prekop of the process that led to the new record's sound. "As a result, what the band brought was more reactionary, impulsive, since the foundation was already there. The pieces seemed able to absorb a new kind of risk taking. It was fascinating to hand over almost complete works and have the other members of the band have at it, rip up, reconfigure, reconsider. Just when I felt I couldn’t go further on a song, someone in the band would change it forever. I firmly believe in taking cues and direction as the material evolves. I’m never one to impose preconceptions on a record and feel the most interesting work is found, rather than predetermined."