Customer Reviews

Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Warp records paraded out an immensely impressive stable of artists over the past decade. Aphex Twin, Autechre, Boards of Canada, Squarepusher, and now Prefuse 73. The first four of the aforementioned artists have made indelible impressions on electronic music (and beyond). I predict Scott Herren, the man behind Prefuse 73, will as well.

Herren has been making music under a variety of monikes since 1997. Most notably as Delarosa & Asora for the Schematic Label, and as Savath & Savalas for the Hefty label. These releases are mellow, almost atmospheric collections. Prefuse 73 material while containing similar gentle melodies is hip-hop, cut up an turned inside out.

Many electronic artists have used record scratching from the outset and collaborations with MCs has been all the rage for a couple of years. Prefuse 73's efforts to combine 'glitch' and hip-hop really raises the bar. This release comes close to reconciling IDM with its hip-hop origins. Its an intoxicatingly fresh mix of sounds.

This album is full of hot beats and cut up vocals. The sound has been labeled 'blip hop', which I find unfortunate as Prefuse 73 is anything but the intellectual, distant sounds that moniker evokes. Yes, theres a lot of programming trickery at work, but first and foremost this album is full of grooves, record scratching, and wicked break beats. Unlike many of his peers, Herren knows how to keep his songs succinct and the pace moving. Most of these tracks clock in around three minutes.

This album is a natural extension for fans of Boards Of Canada and the like. I've even had a great deal of success getting some of my rap/hip-hop oriented friends into Prefuse 73. So if you like the stylings of such acts as Jurassic 5 and Del tha Funky Homosapien this release will also be pleasing. Jump on it now, I think Prefuse 73 will become a big name.

Scott Herren,a DJ from Atlanta, put together something of a mission statement for glitch-hop with Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives. This record, I think, marks the beginning of age that will make it difficult to tell the difference between hip-hop and and an electronic scene that's been given it's first big shove in creativity in at least a few years.

From the intro, a hip-hop station being tuned in and out, you'd expect this to be some underground rapper's record, but instead, the song turns out to be intrumental with fuzzy beats and ominous electonic sine waves that could've been taken from any Tigerbeat6 artist combined with tuned-in cut-up soul singers and indecipherable rapping. Why is it so indecipherable? Because Herren chops rhymes all the way down to the syllable into percussion-like sound effects. It's hard to figure out what just happened once it's over.

The music of the aforementioned "Nuno" seems to be run by a machine that's being allowed to do it's own thing. There's a steady beat, but the sound effects over them seem triggered by other sound effects. Vocal snippets of Mary J. Blige-sounding singers gasping "Oh no..." and generally moaning and squealing are set off by certain beats. It's all very mathematic, but still more plain ...and urban than most of the other hip-hop you'll hear. Kraftwerk would love this stuff. Beats start and stop, vocals are slapped together for new melodies. Each song takes on unpredictable patterns that come like second nature once you get to know them

All this would seem to call for the death of the MC since every song seems to splice up all but the most important phrases in their raps. But instead, you'll find out that half the songs have steady rapping. One of the most surprising is "Last Light" which features a somewhat glitched-up Sam Prekop from The Sea and Cake. He raps gently over a slow ascending/desending melody. Aesop Rock represents hardcore on the staticy "Blacklist" with a rap that could've come off of Labor Days, but somehow he gets shown up by MF Doom who comes through with "I can stop anytime I want to / Famous last words that came back to haunt you / All your life like permanent dry tears," and my favorite line, "For all's I know we been black list / For as long as the Earth rotates on a 23 degree axis."

I hope this record brings some communication between hip-hop, electronica and collage artists everywhere. It's amazing what you can do when you put your heads together. Luckily, Scott Herren has those dueling personas inside him.

it all started while taking my son to the local record exchange to look at used gamecube games and I heard a curious beat with a groove that I couldn't place?

I kept listening as we looked and it sounded like the radio was in between stations (radio, television, and shortwave?)!

I couldn't help but keep listening..... it was hip hop... rap.. samples..... commercials..metal guitar.....D&B... groove .... dub w/ a twist of dance hall?

on the way out I was so worked up I had to ask the counter guy
"WHo is That!!!???

Prefuse 73 vocal studies and uprock.

...... "what???"

he said it again.

Now.... I'm 40 yr old black REPUBLICAN that remembers the begining of hip hop and knew it wasn't a fad in 1977.

Prefuse 73 is Glitch Hop and has to be the one night stand of Kraftwerk ,Art of Noise, yellow magic orchastra, and some of blackest most militant straight out of brooklyn public enemy with a pinch of KRS1 hip hop

Those homeless guys you see argueing and apologizing to themselves?.......... this is want their listening to!

I love it!!!! IT MAKES ME DRIVE FAST

"Vocal Studies and Uprock Narrati" is by far the best Hip-Hop release in my collection. Now, I don't have tons of hip-hop so don't get me wrong. I think so much of todays hip-hop is just bland and on the bandwagon. That's not to say that there aren't good releases either. However, Prefuse 73 has released an incredible collection of beats and cuts from the Warp label.

The first time I heard this album I just new I had to go out and buy it. It is definately one of my top 10 albums of 2001. With DJ Shadow taking FOREVER to release records, I was incredibly happy to have been sent this album from the hip-hop community.

Every song is great. If you like this album, also check out two other artists called Machine Drum and Push Button Objects. Both are of the same style.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!!

I can't say enough about this album; I stumbled upon Prefuse73 after getting the Warp:Routine compilation album (a great mix of the innovative artists under the Warp label, I give it 5 stars as well). I'm mostly a Boards of Canada/Plaid/Autechre/Squarepusher/AphexTwin fan, but Prefuse73 is now one of the highest amongst my ranks. With the exception of the old skool b-boy breaks of the past, I've always thought Hip Hop today is trash along with the rest of the superfluous pop music waste that the general public is assaulted with everyday; but thank god we have Scott Herren to wade through the refuse and literally break it down - This album is TIGHT! Prefuse37 has brought hip hop full circle, shattering the 'bling bling' mentality of todays hip hop 'artists' (pfff) and reconstructing some of the sickest beats you'll ever bounce your head to with the fragments. This is the next level of hip hop MUSIC as it was meant to be!

This is the best breakbeat disc I have ever heard. To hear Scott Herren's music is to hear DJing as no one else does it. The breaks are fast, skitterish, and dynamic, constantly reinventing themselves before you can quite grasp what you've just heard. Somehow, through it all, the mixing is really smooth. That's not to say you could dance to it. Well, perhaps you could dance to it if you were having a siezure, but otherwise, it won't happen. The disc is beat heavy, with just a few vocal tracks with guests MF Doom and Aesop Rock.
I hate to gush like this, but I sincerely think this disc is one of the best I've heard in the genre, and I'd hate not to do it justice.

this record is just plain art and reaches beyond music, it seems as if it was exploring and commenting in urban culture

whether your thing is hip-hpo, idm, dance, whatever it is, just get this record,

inspiring indeed

david

Nice. More than nice, very very nice. I love the way ground-breaking music takes on all kinds of descriptions because it's... indescribable! OK I'll add mine: "chop-hop". This is slightly more digestible than Squarepusher's "Go Plastic" (you can listen to more than a few tracks before the lid of your skull pops open) but it has all the fun rhythmic offsetting and compound multiple sneak attack downbeats (hmmm... not sure what to call that stuff, but it sure is neat).

If you're interested in expanding your notion of organized sound, get this one. Fun fun fun.

Anyone listening to Prefuse's First album for the first time, will invariably after 1 minute...walk over to the Cd player to make sure to the Cd isn't skipping whilst playing, such is the Scratch/Glitch construction of his track. User's unfamiliar with his work will almost certainly wondered if the Cd itself isn't faulty as Prefuse's use of cutting & Splicing samples along with liberal use of Glitch editing, will seem Avant-garde to people not familiar with artists such as "Aphex Twin / Autechre", but where as their music is based generally around techno/Breakbeat.....Prefuse tackles the Hip-Hop Genre with the same work ethic (but arguably more inventive ideas), that could never be accused of being `Tried & Unoriginal', which does mean that this probably requires more attention than most (especially in the Hip-Hop genre), but subsequent listens allow the true depths of his ideas/music to really come into their own.....admittedly maybe a bit too leftfield for mass market consumption, but at the same time pushing the boundaries of music, in many, many exciting areas, and equalling offering up hundreds of possibilities with which to pursue.

Just because it's all cut up, deconstructed, and collaged, doesn't mean there's no songs here. This album flows smoothly into my ears. And I hear music, not deconstructed hip-hop. It seems like a good jazz album to me. It's very pretty and very smooth in parts. It retains some of the best emotive qualities of soul, jazz, and hip-hop. Sure, it's cerebral and is based in abstraction, but there's a certain lushness to the listen. It's totally accessable. People can interpret this album in many ways. Why the assumptions of "Donkeye?" People don't have a fear of music. They like what they like.