Five years after recording his debut solo album, songwriter and singer Sam Prekop, frontman of the band The Sea and Cake, has returned to his solo efforts with the release of his second work, "Who's Your New Professor," on Thrill Jockey records.
In the time since the release of his self-titled solo endeavor, Prekop recorded two full-length albums with The Sea and Cake band members Archer Prewitt, John McEntire and Eric Claridge. The group was formed in 1993.
Prekop enlists some of the same players he used on the first work - bassist Josh Abrams, Prewitt (guitar), drummer Chad Taylor and cornet player Rob Mazurek - and recorded it in the same locale, his Chicago apartment. As a way to keep overdubs to a minimum, Prekop and his band played the songs live while sitting in a room together.
The album features Prekop's knack for layered and exotic arrangements but is a work based more in the blues idiom as opposed to Brazilian rhythms that were so popular on "Sam Prekop."
Aside from music, Prekop has made a name for himself in the art world over the last decade. His paintings have been exhibited in the Clementine Gallery in New York, the MCA in Houston, the Pompidou Center in Paris and the Modern Institute in Glasgow, among others.
The Beach Reporter this week talked with Prekop about his new work. He will be in Los Angeles at the Troubadour May 19, playing with the band Pit er Pat.
The Beach Reporter: This album sounds different than your past work. Were you listening to a certain type of music that perhaps you hadn't listened to all that much in the past before making this record?
Sam Prekop: I don't think so, but one of my goals is to be careful in trying not to repeat things that I've done before. I'm happy to hear you think it sounds different from all of the other stuff because it seems like most people feel like it sounds like what I do all the time, which I would disagree. I hope this stuff ultimately doesn't sound like too much of anything besides what I do. The album sort of arrives in a haphazard way in terms of what ends up being on the record. I come up with a lot of stuff, and the songs that start to work out and become interesting end up being on my records. The other ones, I forget what it was I was doing with them and they fall apart.
This album really captures the notion of the blues in its backdrop and moves away from the Brazilian sounds that you've highlighted in the past. What was it like shifting gears?
It was something I was definitely trying to stay aware of. To me, it was allowing a lot of old blues ideas to happen, and it may not immediately sound like it but some of it sort of works with the standard sort of blues framework. I was careful to tone down my Brazilian influences, which have been cited often. Each new work poses difficulties in terms of trying to make the best record that you can. Also, you never want to feel like you're repeating yourself in doing stuff you already know how to do, so it's like a process of exposing what you've learned this time around while making this record. I hope that sort of shows up and it's not always like cataloging your ideas exactly. You sort of hope that the whole is greater that the sum of its parts in terms of influences and what I might be interested in.
Because you wanted to do something different, did the thought that your fans might like it ever cross your mind while you recorded the album?
It seems like that happens more after the fact. While I'm actually working on it, I really just focus on the task at hand. The last solo record I made, it was only recently that I realized the people really seem to like that record. So there was some of that baggage hanging around whereas I felt like people really liked that first record. I certainly didn't want to disappoint by coming out with something that was so radically not related to the past, which I knew was impossible since I invited the same people to play on it and wanted to maintain continuum between the two without having stagnated during that time. But it was definitely on my mind that people really liked that first record and I was hoping that this new one wouldn't disappoint those people, but I think it would be pretty hard to make a record worrying about who's going to like it or not.
On this album, the vocals seem to really take center stage on this album and the music kind of serves as a cushion.
Yeah, I think the singing this time is much more up front, sort of the main focus, which is definitely different than most of The Sea and Cake stuff, and the first Sam record. While writing tunes, I usually don't worry about the vocals until the music's completely done and I just sort of directed to the finished tracks. This time, I was coming up with the singing not so much in terms of the lyrics, but definitely working in concert with the music in how I am going to approach the vocals on top of the chords. I felt like I didn't have to overcompensate the guitar playing because I wanted to leave room in the song and not clutter it up with unnecessary stuff. Because I was thinking vocals right off the bat I was able to have some of the guitar stuff simpler and open, and chord changes that would facilitate the singing.
Do you like this approach more?
I think I realized I wasn't able to do it this way in the past so much, but rather I had to reach this point where I felt like the vocals could be more of a central focus point. It's not like I disliked the vocals on all the other records but I always worked a way in which I was interested in treating the vocals as an element of the ensemble rather than the band just supporting the vocals. I'm still interested in that but this time around I thought it would be good to change that up a bit and I think that makes the record feel quite different.
It seems like many musicians are into photography and art like you. What do you see as being the link?
I don't think there's any kind of real practical link that's terribly useful except for designing record covers and stuff. I feel that both the music, the art and the photography is just me trying to faithfully express my sensibilities and if the work is happening correctly I think you can discover an aesthetic link between the paintings and the music I make. I think the sensibility is definitely shared, it's not like I turn into someone else to make the music from when I make the paintings. The creative impulses, I guess, come from somewhere else but at this point, I've been doing both for a really long time that on this level it's sort of interchangeable. The photography I got into pretty late. That sort of started from being on tour a lot and that was a way for me to be visually active while traveling and doing music. It's r
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