Sam Prekop - Old Punch Card

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5...according to our Business Lady on Thu 16 Sep, 2010.

You'll have heard Mr. Sam Prekop's beautiful voice before as he's the founding member and front man for The Sea And Cake, one of Chicago's finest bands. I may be wrong but I believe this is Sam's third solo album and it looks like he's taken a complete stylistic u-turn into the Electronica/IDM zone - processing music in wild and wonderful ways. His debut solo LP from 1999 was very much like The Sea and Cake with Prekop singing and playing guitar with members of Tortoise and various other fantastic Chicago players. Something strange must have occurred on 'Who's Your New Professor' (which helpfully I've not heard) because his new music has gone totally into the future. This is the kind of classicist electronica I find hard to pin down and explain but believe me this is incredibly textured, inventive and beautifully melodic electronic improvisation that I'd say is most closely associated with Kosmische and the early European synth explorers. It's gonna take a while for the jump in style to kick in but from my first brief listen I'm amazed and slightly overwhelmed. Everyone should check this out.

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· Thrill Jockey are pleased to announce ‘Old Punch Card’, the new instrumental, electronic album by Sam Prekop, who is known to most as the singer and songwriter of The Sea and Cake.

· He is a painter of some renown, a photographer and in addition he hasm released two solo albums of pop songs infused with his own blend of African and Brazilian guitar rhythms. ‘Old Punch Card’, his first solo effort since 2005, takes a dramatically unexpected turn away from either of these paths.

· Taking inspiration from early music concrete and electronic music, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, Nuno Canavarro, Raymond Scott, David Behrman, and free improvisation, ‘Old Punch Card’ is a beautifully noisy, jagged yet stately album of synthesizer music.

· The ideas and implementation of ‘Old Punch Card’ (the album title alluding to the electronic, faintly mechanic origins of the music) were the result of an entirely new challenge: to do something completely different from anything else he’s ever created.

· To facilitate this end, Prekop implemented a series of strict guidelines for the recording of the album. No vocals, no guitar (though he slipped in this regard on one track), and no beats.

· Most of the sound material is generated by a modular synthesizer. By its very nature, it excels at some things and not at others. It’s very difficult conventional chord, while on the other hand, it excels at creating completely unanticipated sounds and is rather effective when it comes to “chance” composing strategies.

· The album was recorded entirely in Prekop’s home studio and monitored on headphones, allowing him to focus on the texture and dynamic of the music.
Every nuance was hyper exposed and therefore had to be considered. All of the pieces were recorded between February 2009 and March 2010 but the bulk of the material was recorded in the last three winter months.

· The end result is a record of strangely serene beauty, leading the listener down a myriad of otherworldly paths, all the while serving as a unique path for the musician himself.

· CD version comes packaged in a four panel mini-LP style gatefold package, the first 1,000 copies featuring hand painted covers by Sam Prekop, each copy unique.

· LP version includes DRM-free MP3 download coupon the first 1,000 copies featuring hand painted covers by Sam Prekop, each copy unique.

· Prekop will be on tour this fall with The Sea and Cake opening shows for Broken Social Scene whose new album features a song with vocal and guitar contributions from Prekop.