Is this a cheap excuse to have a picture of a cat on the home page, therefore doubling our hits? Definitely not! This is a new single by the Sea and Cake’s Sam Prekop, who has just announced a new solo album ‘The Republic’ which is out on 23rd February. Listen to the single ‘Weather Vane’ below.

Sam Prekop’s music is always imbued with a sense of wide-eyed discovery and exploration, regardless of the style he is working in. As the singer and guitarist of the acclaimed indie rock group The Sea and Cake, Prekop has incorporated elements of traditional styles from around the world, expanding the public perception of what it means to be the leader of a pop band. In recent years, he has also established himself as a modular synthesist, building his instrument meticulously to find the perfect combination of oscillators, sequencers, limiters and filters to create a system that allows him to create sounds that are surprising and inviting.

His new solo album, The Republic is his latest synthesizer work, following 2010’s Old Punch Card and showcases Prekop’s talent for creating expressive music through mechanical patterns, repetitions, and chance. Prekop’s innate gifts of melodic turns of phrase that have made him a revered songwriter are transferred into new forms in his synthesizer work, aided by the unpredictable melodic capabilities of analog sequencers, and The Republic is an exciting new chapter in his development as an accomplished synthesist.

The first half of The Republic consists of songs that were originally created as a score for a video installation of the same name by David Hartt, which was shown at the David Nolan Gallery in New York. The second half of the record consists of some of Prekop’s most warm and inviting synth work yet, built using ideas that worked better on their own as opposed to accompanying the installation. These songs have a sense of forward motion that is often missing in many recordings by modern modular synthesists, which Prekop attributes to his incorporation of the instrument into his writing process for The Sea and Cake’s acclaimed 2012 album Runner.

Listen to the euphoric track ‘Weather Vane’