Prefuse 73 Album: “Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives”

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.

"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!!!!

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.

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.

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.