Sea Changes
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Prekop and band keep the volume low and the vibe subdued during their eight-song set as the industry-only crowd gabs away over martinis in the back. During the Gastr Del Sol-flavored lead-in of "Don't Bother," Prekop looks out sternly into the audience, and in seconds the room goes quiet again.
Although the band gets cooking during "So Shy," the record's closing track, its members show the tentativeness that comes from only two rehearsals. Prekop sips beer and nods at his bandmates when they work into a smile-inducing groove. He nods again when he wants the song to end. The band is in New York for two quick shows and the requisite round of interviews, conventional wisdom dictates it will be plenty more prepared for upcoming visits to Europe and Japan as well as the rest of the U.S. this spring and summer.
Not bad for a guy who came to music late in life via art school and managed to wind up in Chicago's The Sea and Cake, one of the most successful indie-rock bands of the '90s. Via four albums with this outfit, Prekop has honed his tender, falsetto-tinged croon within jazzy rhythms and modal melodies. He will admit to not approaching this project any differently than he does a Sea and Cake record, and indeed, these new songs do have a definite Sea and Cake element. The biggest difference is in the rhythm section: the lush rhythm sound of The Sea and Cake's output is replaced here by a stand-up bass and a straight-up jazz drummer (Chicago Underground Duo's Chad Taylor), re-establishing the organic vibe that TSAC temporarily abandoned on its 1997 The Fawn album.
Produced by Jim O'Rourke (ex-Gastr Del Sol), Sam Prekop makes you feel like you're in a smoky room with the band, a cocktail in your hand and a smile on your face. Prekop indulges in an almost bossanova bop on "Showrooms" and the sweet, piano-tinged "Practice Twice," abetted by the clean guitar counterpoints of TSAC colleague Archer Prewitt. And is that Sergio Mendes standing in the corner? I soon find out.
The afternoon following Prekop's gig, I head down to a PR office in the trendy Noho neighborhood to interrogate the enigmatic singer about his new record. On the way, I see a movie being filmed (hipster has epiphany in front of hot-dog stand) and pass Sonic Youth's Kim Gordon at an intersection. On the 13th floor of the building I wait as Prekop finishes up an interview. When it's my turn, I ask him how he comes up with his lyrics, at times barely intelligible on record.
"It's my hardest job," he says. "I always put it off to the end, so in some ways it's the most rewarding. I'll have periods where I'll just write down stuff, what I view as raw material or a pool to draw from."
Prekop's penchant for ambiguous imagery, though, is purely intentional. "It's all fairly abstract. It's loosely love songs, but that's just more of a form. I like to contradict myself," he reveals with a grin. Prekop doesn't seem particularly anxious to discuss his new record, but I do find out that he was pleasantly surprised at how little additional work had to be done on his basic tracks during the recording sessions. "I thought we'd be in the studio a lot longer," he says. "It turns out that the tunes were more fully formed than I'd expected."
Prekop credits cornet player Rob Mazurek (Chicago Underground Duo) and O'Rourke with coloring the album's empty spaces with trademark ghostly noises and minimalist strings and piano. TSAC/Tortoise percussionist John McEntire even shows up on a few tracks, credited with "triangle" and "maracas." Prekop also acknowledges the strong influence of Brazilian music on the album, a love for which he and McEntire have developed over the past few years.
"I was laying low on guitar for awhile and working more on electronic stuff," Prekop says of the material he's been writing since the last Sea and Cake record, some of which was released on special Japanese editions of The Fawn. "When I picked up the guitar again, I had a renewed passion for playing and it was becoming clear that the Brazilian stuff had a major effect on that," he admits.
But Prekop is also quick to point out that he's no virtuoso. For him, making music is meant to be fun. "I was very careful not to make a fake Brazilian record or like a fake jazz record," he says. "All of the styles are distilled enough so that they are useful." The same is his true with his curious, breathy vocal phrasings and lyrics, the supposed mystery of which he fails to understand. "I *am* singing in English, aren't I?," he asks rhetorically and smiles. "I guess I'm much harder to understand than I think!"
An artist by trade, Prekop will give his first solo painting exhibition at Chicago's Jan Cicero gallery on March 26 (his paintings have adorned the cover art on most of his albums). He's planning to tour with David Pajo (Slint, Tortoise, Aerial M) as a support act for the spring U.S. dates, and to then begin work on the next Sea and Cake record by next fall. Prekop says that "Window Lights," a Sea and Cake track that appears on the new "Reach The Rock" movie soundtrack (Hefty Records), could help shape the sound of the next release. "It's a refinement of a lot of the ideas on The Fawn, he says. "It's based around a weird rhythmic loop. It's very lean and linear -- I think it's one of our best songs." Perhaps for Sam Prekop, the best fun is yet to come.
JONATHAN COHEN | Jonathan Cohen co-created Nude As The News with his Indiana University mates Troy Carpenter and Ben French. When not traversing the globe for business and pleasure, he holds down the fort as a senior editor for Billboard in New York. Stop him and he just may ask, "what for lunch?"