Sam Prekop

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 to play a 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.