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Amazon.co.uk Review
An impressive fusion of electronics and hip-hop, Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives is Atlanta-born sound scientist Scott Herren's debut record under the pseudonym Prefuse 73. In the past, he's recorded avant-electronica as Delarosa & Asora and post-rock as Savath & Savalas--but his work as Prefuse finds him making a cerebral, precise misshape of music that's so starkly original, it often sounds like nothing else ever put to tape. Over the record's 16 fantastically twisted tracks, Herren cuts up the lyrical flow of a relay team of rappers into a maelstrom of dismembered syllables, electronic stutters and Aphex-style ambient bass chimes; the way he feeds the conventions of old-skool hip-hop through a virus-raddled modem and drags the often beautiful likes of "Point To B" or "Back In Time" out of the other end is often little short of miraculous. If there's a frustrating side to "Vocal Studies...", it's purely in the fact that Herren seems too impatient to follow many ideas to their plotted conclusions; when, on "Black List", he lets his guesting rap crew actually spit out their rhymes safe from the digital mincer, it's like a mini-revelation in itself. That's not to do this fine record down, though--everyone from broad-minded B-boys to quirk-hungry Rephlex heads should find an embarrassment of glitch-riches here. --Louis Pattison
Review
The current wave of avant hip hop as exemplified by Anti Pop Consortium, Deep Puddle Dynamics, the sundry artists on Mush records and the like has dealt mostly with creating a more interesting sonic environment to drop rhymes into. Prefuse 73 (aka Atlantan electro-whiz Scott Herren) has gone one step further on this surprising release from the mighty Warp label, though this is by no means typical of the labels usual output.
Digitally messing with the contributions of various MCs, Herren's stated intention is to create a new 'mangled language'. This he does admirably, turning lyrical flow into abstraction, into something like Kurt Schwitters sound poetry or a malfunctioning speech synthesizer. Rhymes are reduced to a collection of plosives, vowels and half formed syllables where the power of the original delivery is left intact but the sense is all but removed; the rap becomes just another component of the music.
Herrens musical settings are equally offbeam - lush rhodes piano and horn samples are shredded and spat out over stunted beats in a datastream of glitches and pops, which nevertheless still maintain a level of funkiness. Taken as a whole the album is pretty relentless, though two tracks let up a little - the wistful "last light", a collaboration with Sea and Cake frontman Sam Prekop, and the luscious, sun kissed blissout that is "afternoon love in", which recalls Herrens outing as Savaath + Savalas on Hefty.
If you liked Funkstorung and Kid 606's forays into hip hop deconstruction, you'll like this. Best taken in small doses though... --Peter Marsh
Find more music at the BBC This link will take you off Amazon in a new window
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Take my advice on this one; anyone who is idiotic enough to give this album less than 5 stars is out of their mind! This is one of the most beautifully constructed cut up abstract hip-hop break albums I have ever heard, and I don't think there could be any other album that could match it EVER (except for Nightmares on Wax - Carboot Soul, also a gem).
The man behind Prefuse 73 (Scott Herren) opens this album with the lushous 'radio attack' which sets the mood for the mouthwatering tracks that follow. 'Smile in your face' is an absolute scorcher of a track...probably my personal favourite, but every track is a classic. 'eve of destruction'- which is kinda similar to the 'Boards of Canada' style is another cracker. I could go on and on about how immense each track is.
Put it this way, I couldn't find a better album to listen to during the drab summer days in Scotland. Why don't you have a listen for yourself and make up your own mind.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
With a myriad of pseudonyms under his belt, Miami-based Scott Herren is an intriguing bird of prey, scavenging the remains of electronica, down tempo post-rock and hip-hop like others drink milk. As it stands, the man is too big to play around with only one genre at a time, let alone sticking to the same old crap forever. Drawing the name for his latest incarnation from his keen interest in pre-fusion jazz "circa 1973", Herren has set himself the rather impressive task of reinventing hip-hop. Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives is an incredibly dense record, and Herren's hip-hop is no classic MC overflow. As he puts it himself, the human voice is "just another layer of sound", and the intention here is not to convey any kind of political message, but to work on the correlation between language and music. For this purpose, Herren uses lyrical performances, from which he surgically extracts crucial moments, which he randomly re-injects over syncopated, red-hot beats and funky electronic deconstructions, sometimes allowing a slight melody to filter for an instant. And this is where the strength of the man's talent is the most impressive. As he swerves between genres, not favouring one over the other, Herren creates his own blend of twisted sounds and structures, and, although some influences are traceable, the elaborate compositions have their own personality and style. The addition of vocals is no more anachronic. Herren's compositions disturb as much as they challenge the mind, as he inserts his shreds of samples at strategic moments, creating a constant feeling of insecurity and oppression. As the album progresses, and the listener is under a constant flow of imaginative ideas, pieces of the puzzle progressively fall into place, with songs like Radio Attack, Life/Death, Point To B (already featured on the Estrocaro EP), or Back In Time, demonstrating time and time again that hip-hop doesn't need a strong message to be powerful and intelligent. In fact, it feels here like it is only when submitted to this kind of treatment that it actually gets its full impact. As the MC becomes integrant part of the sound, Scott Herren rethinks hip-hop, funk and electronic and produces an impressive album, likely to be a source of inspiration for musicians for years to come.
Format:Audio CD
Warp, to most people is just an odd , unique and out of normal rail electronic music. But just Melankolic has Day one and Mowax has South, Warp has got a exceptional Warp thing cool hip hop band (prefuse 73). very hip-hop, very cool music with prefuse 73. Life Death, Nuno is my favourite track. Cool vocal and cool beats. 5 minutes away is a cool hip-hop beat background with chill out melodies and instrumental piece of music. So have a drink and have a sip of listen. Cool in summer of this tunes and the whole album. PS: The artwork is exceptionally cool too. but what's the relationship of a man with bike and the vocal study? Bike to have a vocal study? anyway.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
er - nu folktronica hip-hop anyone ? GREAT
this is a GREAT lp - i'd heard the buzz abt Prefuse some years ago say 2003 + only just bought this lp (in late 2008) long after the event, as it was going cheap + i'm a curious... Read more
Published on 1 Feb 2009 by simon mack
Probably my favourite Prefuse 73 album
This album is very good indeed with perhaps only one weak track out of a total of seventeen.
Heren has a very distinctive sound and approach to composing beats and this... Read more
Heren has a very distinctive sound and approach to composing beats and this... Read more
Published on 22 Sep 2006 by Capster
don't be stuck WARP as odd and more odder electronic music
Warp, to most people is just an odd , unique and out of normal rail electronic music. But just Melankolic has Day one and Mowax has South, Warp has got a exceptional Warp thing... Read more
Published on 7 July 2001 by o778@onetelhk.net
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