Sam Prekop
Mon May 23
Doug Fir Lounge
830 E Burnside

Sam Prekop was outside a club in Hamburg, Germany when we spoke. "On the surface, the city comes across as fairly unpleasant, but it's really not," he said before expounding on the simple joys of local bratwurst: "They're these huge sausages and tiny buns… when you put them together, it's like a big smile!"

Prekop's ability to pinpoint the strangely sunny bits in life is an admirable gift, and one which he inadvertently uses throughout his new full-length on Thrill Jockey, Who's Your New Professor. (Hint: It's him!)

Prekop, the former Sea and Cake/Shrimp Boat frontman, hasn't released a full-length since his eponymous solo debut in '99--but that's just because these things take time to develop. As with his earlier work, Prekop and his set of collaborators--Jim O'Rourke, Archer Prewitt, Josh Abrams, and Chad Taylor--let their compositions develop slow and cool.

"Usually when I'm making these, I'll get 'em to a point where they let themselves take the direction they'll take," Prekop said of the process he uses to fully realize his compositions. Through patience, Prekop lets the records "reveal themselves, in a way," and this effort came to fruition no differently. Although he doesn't think of it as an upbeat record, it comes off as such. "C+F," the album's handclap-riddled trotter and most bordering-on-danceable track, is like weird nocturnal party pop: Drowsy, but jazzed. Half of "Dot Eye," which sports a Crazy Horse-like midsection replete with uncharacteristically fuzzed textures, is something he "never could've thought would've happened. If I'd preconceived it, it would've been bogus." Don't worry, Sam. It's killer, like always.