Prefuse 73 Albums (6)
'Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian'
Release Date 4/14/2009
Tracks 29
Label Warp
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Spinning through 29 tracks in just under 50 minutes, Scott Herren's sixth proper LP as Prefuse 73 offers more of the same musical madness for fans of his no-attention-span cut-ups -- and that's a good thing. With remarkably few guests and remarkably few samples (at least recognizable ones), it's basic Prefuse material, but with dozens of ideas and delicious dead ends. Anyone looking for a differentiator between this and recent Prefuse material may look in vain, but there's slightly more electro than hip-hop going on here. Also, as in the past, there are occasional glimpses of his other projects bleeding through. Beginning with "DEC. Machine Funk All ERA's," with its airy introduction and female vocal samples, Herren reels off a series of tracks that switch back and forth between cavernous hip-hop and airy folktronica with vocal samples, all the time spending less than two minutes per cut. The flavor of a spinning radio dial has never been stronger, especially as Herren stirs in nods to more types of music, like glimpses of Japanese and Spanish forms that are ever so brief (naturally). ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Scott Herren has grown into an iconoclast who resists the ingrained nature of releasing full-length-album statements every two to four years. Instead, during his career he has released several mini-albums, which are good ways to get more music into the market and put less of your reputation on the line. (After all, mainstream music critics need to take LPs seriously, but not EPs or singles.) Security Screenings, which arrived just one year after his last full-length, is light on collaborative tracks (only two) and very light on vocals (none whatsoever, besides a few random samples and the ironic inclusion of the low lights from a Prefuse interviewer who objects to the predominance of vocal tracks on 2005's Surrounded by Silence). Midway through the second track, Herren's patented glitchy hip-hop lurches into life like Frankenstein's monster reanimated in yet another sequel. Interestingly, however, it doesn't last long, and Herren revisits it only twice more during the record's 40 minutes. (Another clue to Herren's state of mind would be his title for one of those tracks: "Keeping Up with Your Quota.") The Prefuse of past years is replaced by plenty of airy distortion (reminiscent of his work with the Books and his side project, Savath + Savalas), and nods to the hip-hop beatwork of his early Warp records. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Scott Herren's first two full-lengths as Prefuse 73 were masterly collisions of wave-your-hand party breaks and stop-time glitch techno. Everything held sacred in the hip-hop playbook -- including the rapper -- was merely fodder for Herren's processor, and given enough time, he could rearrange an earthy old-school track into a computer-bred monster that would make a master of the jutting sample like Marley Marl sound close to a syrupy G-funk producer in comparison. While Herren's third album down the line could never be the same revolution in sound as his first two, it's a surprise nevertheless to find it downright desultory. With a series of all-star rap features -- including three underperforming members from Wu-Tang Clan and three OK contractors from Definitive Jux -- Herren's productions serve his guests instead of his own tracks, and the result is very close to just another underground rap record, with the usual collection of untraceable sound detritus to anchor its productions. Several of the instrumentals recapture something of the Prefuse 73 magic, but Herren isn't entirely successful even when in cut-and-splice mode -- one track finds him sampling and repeating a series of downright annoying nasalisms from Tyondai Braxton (although the title, "Mantra," furnishes a partial explanation). ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Soon after releasing One Word Extinguisher, his long-awaited second full record as Prefuse 73, Scott Herren delivered another set of recordings to Warp and requested a release. It's easy to see why the label agreed; several of the tracks on this collection of outtakes could have easily made the highlight reel. Besides proving how much talent Scott Herren has sitting around, Extinguished also illustrates that he's a surprisingly good editor. As great as they are, most of these work better on an EP release simply because of their length; ripping through 23 tracks in a half-hour, Herren gives listeners the gist of a simple idea, then cuts out, usually in less than a minute. (Only a few, including the opening "Suite for the Way Things Happen," reveal more than one idea at work.) Jagged-edge beat tracks like "Martinique Was My Girl" or "For Some but Not for Me" or "Wronge Posture" succeed on little more than the Prefuse trademark: intricate, repeatedly triggered samples of strings, pianos, disembodied vocals -- just enough to wrap around his ideas several times and create a distinguishable melody line (and more often than not, a breathtaking one). Compared to the original One Word Extinguisher, Herren is slightly more laid-back and not as heavy with the collaborations (except for the excellent rap piece "Pase Rock's Prestyle"). For those who can't get enough Prefuse, Extinguished is an even more concentrated work of genius than the LP. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
What The Critics Say
Prefuse 73's second album for Warp should be the one that catapults Scott Herren into the programming firmament occupied by Warp mainstays like Autechre and Aphex Twin. A fascinating collection of glitchy breakbeats and inventive, melodic experimental techno, One Word Extinguisher is a set of electronica that's nearly as challenging as Autechre's relentlessly academic beat manipulation but just as funky and instantly gratifying as a Fatboy Slim flag-waver. (Certainly those famous former b-boys in Plaid could never hope to score a Foot Locker commercial.) But forget electronic music -- Herren is trying to take hip-hop to the next level with a vision of breakbeat music that, like the crunchy digital productions of Timbaland and Neptunes, pushes hip-hop production into the future. Quintessentially '70s and '80s innovations like samplers and analog mixers are giving way to digital software and CD mixers, and Herren welcomes the changeover; "Huevos With Jeff and Roni," one of the record's three vocal tracks, features Def Jux's Mr. Lif "on a minisc mic." Not that Russell Simmons is about to jump on the Prefuse bandwagon, or a Scott Herren line of urban fashionwear is in the cards, but One Word Extinguisher means as much to the future of underground rap as it does to experimental techno. Skater hero and lo-fi mastermind Tommy Guerrero, Ann Arborite Dabrye, and Plug Research's own Daedelus each stop by for intriguing co-productions. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
'Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives'
Release Date 5/15/2001
Tracks 16
Label Warp
See Album Tracklist and Review
What The Critics Say
Warp's second 2001 release by a stateside producer (after Richard Devine's Lip Switch) is one of the most enjoyable works of experimental techno heard in several years, a combination of tough, underground hip-hop and the fractured neo-electro of Warp favorites Autechre and Plaid. Scott Herren, the lone figure behind releases as Delarosa & Asora, Savath & Savalas, and Prefuse 73, constructs raw breakbeat tracks, cutting and splicing vocals, beats, and pianos over and over until what may previously have been a straight-ahead hip-hop rhythm track gets reconstructed into a symphony of deeply groovy musique concrète. Herren calls on the raw repetition of DJ Premier and the catchy finesse of Timbaland to create a collection of tracks that could appeal to fans of DMX just as well as AFX. Just slightly more experimental than the increasingly fractured productions you'd hear on a mainstream rap station, Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives is also much more fun than the notoriously academic cast of techno producers led by Autechre and Richard Devine. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide
