SAM PREKOP - Old Punch Card

Admitting that it took me a long time to remember to review this album isn't exactly the best way to begin its endorsement—especially when I also admit that Sam Prekop's self-titled debut solo album is one of my favourite records of all time. I mean, I should be all over this, right?

My relative tardiness does say a lot about the latest from the Sea and Cake frontman, but it's not as bad as it might seem. Old Punch Card is a very different album to his first two solo works, trading their cooing jazzy pop/soul for dawn-of-the-computer electronic instrumentals. But it happens to pick up a dropped thread from earlier in his career. Originally, his first solo album was going be such a record—you can hear his early stabs at this material with the two final cuts on The Sea and Cake's 1997 EP, Two Gentlemen. Evidently, Prekop wasn't fully happy with where those songs initially led, but he did keep at it. Ten years later, he had a book of photography published (2007's Photographs) and stuck with it via an eight-song CD of untitled electronic instrumentals. The pieces were brief Boards of Canada-style beatscapes punctuated by primitive melody. It was a nice little bonus, but there was not much reason to believe that it warranted a wider release.

Old Punch Card arrives with similarly homespun hedged bets—the first 1000 copies have hand-painted artwork by Prekop himself, and there was little fanfare to herald its release. Even by his soft-spoken standards, it's something of a minor album. But that's kind of the beauty of the whole thing. By skirting anything approaching a big show, this album is going to end up in the intended hands: i.e. people who are familiar enough with the man and his pedigree to give his first full-on foray into electronic music a chance.

Does it match his careful buildup? While spare and open, Old Punch Card is certainly confident of its territory. Though it boasts nothing approaching a song, Prekop tours the array of sounds before him like a connoisseur at a wine and cheese tasting—every sip and nibble of bubbly binary is presented just so. And just as one would at such a culinary event, you have to allow yourself to indulge a bit to get the most out of it. But if you do, you'll quickly find that glitch 'A' really does pair nicely with zap 'B'. It all adds up in ways that kind of circumvent rational explanation. It just sounds pretty cool. 

From a man whose solo and full-band discography speaks volumes of quality—not to mention an exceptional career as a painter and photographer—a minor release of cool-sounding recreational electronic music is more than allowed. If anything, that's a huge part of what makes it the special little find it is.