Yeah, I finally picked up the first solo record repress not too long ago… It’s an absolute gem. Jim O’Rourke is on that one… So lots of Gastr del Sol vibe.
Haven’t dove into the “Professor” album as much. Need to return to it
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Naturally love everything about that first solo album, but especially love the Chad Taylor/Joshua Abrams rhythm section holding it down. Both absolutely top notch players.
My impression is that Jim mostly did engineering/production work, but checking the credits it does look like he played some too. It’s fascinating how different people hear different things, because I don’t hear much Gastr in there aside from maybe touches of the sunny vibes on Camofleur, but I always associate that as less Gastr and more the dissolution of Gastr and the pivot to solo O’Rourke pop and solo Grubbs pop and less a true Gastr album (whatever that means, but it’s pretty radically different than all the other Gastr releases to me).
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I saw Sam Prekop perform the other night and it was quite good. The material was very similar to his recent releases, which I have enjoyed a lot. The crowd got into it too - he is making music for more than just us synth nerds.
In terms of gear, I spotted a Nymphes, Digitakt, and Boum in addition to the modular.
His use of the Digitakt was interesting, making use of its melodic abilities even more than its percussive. For instance, constantly changing step length on the fly for whatever module he was sequencing, giving a lot of variation from simple patterns. He also played the chromatic keyboard live which was a nice touch.
It was good music and a nice performance - a reminder that even a tableful of gear is there, only and ultimately, to make nice sounds for us to listen to.
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I had a dream the other night where I was biking down a city street with a friend, and Sam Prekop was sitting on the curb doing something – maybe eating an ice cream cone or something. My friend and I both waved to him and said “Hi, Sam Prekop!”
Guess it’s time to check out this new album.
Oh wow, I just realized Zak Prekop is his brother - his paintings were a big influence on my practice during college and after.
Just stopping by to drop this off
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him and McEntire are doing a brief European tour, for all you Euro-nauts.
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Sounds good
I have a feeling gear makers are a little in denial about how popular straightforward non-multisampled chromatic sample playing is
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