PREFUSE 73: Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (Warp Records)

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Posted on Mar 26th 2009 01:40 am

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Prefuse 73: Everything She Touches Turned Ampexian

PREFUSE 73
Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian
WARP179
Warp Records 2009
29 Tracks. 48mins24secs

Icon: arrow Buy: CD | LP

In recent years, there has been a noticeable shift towards a generally softer and more polished sound in the work of Guillermo Scott Herren, characterised first via his Savath & Savalas project which, following the pastoral ambiences of his debut, Folk Songs For Trains, Trees And Honey (Hefty, 2000), adopted a resolutely sunnier disposition with Apropa’t (Warp, 2004), before drifting into torrid torpor with Golden Pollen (Anti, 2007). Other projects didn’t appear as affected, least of all, for a while at least, Prefuse 73, Herren’s flagship project, which continued to challenge conceptions through his take on abstract hip-hop, but his last release, Preparations, published in 2007, showed some clear signs that the man was indeed mellowing, and its companion album, Interregnums, with its orchestral brushes, didn’t do anything to dissipate this.

First of three albums to be released in quick succession as Prefuse 73, Savath & Savalas and Diamond Watch Wrist, a new collaboration with drummer Zach Hill, Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian continues to investigate the smoother side of Prefuse. Featuring a whopping twenty nine tracks, stretched over forty eight minutes, with only a handful of compositions making it past the three minute mark, this album finds its ground somewhere between hip-hop grooves and Mediterranean inertia. Once again, the boundaries of each track are blurred by the relentless editing process, but the intense cut’n’paste of old has been tamed here to become less compulsive. As a result, the beats appear generally cooler, less syncopated, and, despite the constant injection of new tunes, melodies appear to take shape more fully.

Everything She Touched is much more of a slow burner than its predecessors. Sounding initially too contrived and smooth, it eventually reveals its edgier side, but it takes a while for it to emerge from the sun-drenched nonchalance in which the vast majority of the tracks on here are bathed. And, while this album cannot quite compare with the hyperactive punches of One Word Extinguisher or the spellbinding chaos of Surrounded By Silence, it certainly deserves to be given the time to show what it’s made of.

3.9/5

Icon: arrow Prefuse 73 | Warp Records
Icon: arrow Buy: CD | LP

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