Multi-instrumentalist and artist Sam Prekop has shared the resplendent new piece “A Book”, taken from his recently announced new album Open Close, out on September 26th. The track follows a plucky percussive-forward groove that ebbs into more subtle oscillations and drones which unfurl with a transcendent combination of string-like synth chords and lilting arpeggios. Prekop will be performing at Chicago’s new Sound & Gravity Festival in September alongside Mdou Moctar, followed by an Open Close album release show in NYC at Public Records on September 24th.

Open Close is an album that captures the flow and energy of a live performance through the lens of a deft craftsman, an equilibrium of intuitive composition and the excitement of possibility. Much of the music of Open Close was composed for live performance as Prekop prepared for a series of shows both solo and in collaboration with Laraaji. Prekop had been developing new approaches since the release of Comma in 2020 and his collaborative album Sons Of with John McEntire, incorporating their more rhythm-forward constructions and diverging in new invigorating directions. Open Close melds more abstract textural noise of his modular synth debut Old Punch Card into his lush synthetic landscapes. “In my mind that’s what the modular is really good at doing, adding interesting and less predictable textural elements,” notes Prekop.  “That’s only one part of the dialog though. It energizes the other sounds and voices. Along with the steady rhythmic pulses I’ve been gravitating towards, the juxtaposition of those elements becomes a form of architecture within abstraction, just by imposing them on each other and layering them in a precise way.”

The music of Sam Prekop is defined by his signature curiosity and his ability to mold and refine that curiosity into a wholly unique sound. His process in naming album Open Close mirrors his creative practice and the worlds he builds across the album: “I like simple words that become complicated if you think of them more than a second or two, beyond face value. And Open Close could be: close as in ‘close to you’ or close as in ‘close the door.’ If it gives everything away too quickly, then I’m not interested.” Open Close unearths new, soulfully human sounds from synthetic textures precisely juxtaposed, its subtle contrasts in texture and rhythm are a free-flowing celebration of sonics as stunning as they are ephemeral.