Sam Prekop

Absolutely nobody expected this from Sam Prekop. Five years after his last solo LP (the warm and pop-centric Who's Your New Professor), the Sea and Cake frontman unleashes Old Punch Card, a collection of vocal-less, structure-less experimental/electronic pieces that's more Stockhausen than Sebadoh. On his third solo LP, Prekop almost exclusively creates sounds using a modular synthesizer, conjuring up the barren desert crawl of "Array Wicket" and the heavily textured waves of "The Silhouettes." Cutting and pasting raw sounds alongside gestating anti-rhythms, almost without digression, Prekop crafts songs with particular character, even if that personality comes off as predominantly anti-social. Although this isn't the first time a rock artist has attempted a project like this (Lou Reed and Black Rebel Motorcycle Club come to mind), Old Punch Card has the right amount of character and perspective to sound no less alien to the average indie rock fan than the Sea and Cake would to your great-grandmother.