Prefuse 73 + Diamond Watch Wrists
(Warp)
Guillermo Scott Herren has slowly but surely drifted away from his more traditional hip-hop-rooted work over the past few years - not that he could ever really be called a traditionalist. Over the course of two new releases - one a Prefuse 73 project, the other a collaboration with Hella drummer Zach Hill - Herren continues to redefine electronic music. All the recognizable elements are there - loops, programmed drums, blasts of samples and ambient washes of sound - but the resulting cacophony is something new.
The cover of Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian (8 stars out of 10) is an illustration of a futuristic astronaut exploring an alien world, a perfect metaphor for what Herren is attempting musically. The album comprises 29 songs, some of which are fully fleshed out tracks, but many of which are bridges, bits and pieces of ideas that keep the flow going; according to Herren, Everything is intended as one long single piece, but for marketing (and iTunes) purposes, he had no choice but to index the album. When vocals appear, as they do over the soft guitar strumming at the end of "Regalo," they are soft and ghostly, far from the stuttering rap samples that have sometimes graced his previous albums. But the spectrum ranges far and wide over the course of this record, encompassing "Dec. Machine Funk All Era's" experimental blips and noise to the progressive rock and Orb-style ambience mash-up of "Violent Bathroom Exchange." There's a lot going on here, and at times it sounds frenzied. But taken all at once, the pieces seem to fit together.
Ice Capped At Both Ends (5 stars) s a much different affair. This collaboration with Zach Hill is moody and more than a little somnolent, as Herren sings (weakly) and plays several instruments. The songs are much more pop-oriented, but meander and feel sort of aimless in the way that Anticon records in this vein do. It can also be rather hard to differentiate one song from another, as their tone and pace are all very similar. It's interesting to hear Herren's experiments, but in this case, they just aren't satisfying.
These two very different projects, in both their success and their failings, continue to expose the various and seemingly unending nooks and crannies of Herren's musical mind. Sometimes, an overactive musical wellspring can lead one to stray a bit too far from what he or she does best. In the case of Diamond Watch Wrists, the path is precarious. But, fortunately, Ampexian is still on the right trail.
Standout Tracks: "Parachute Panador" (Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian), "Diamond Falling Off My Grill" (Ice Capped At Both Ends) JONAH FLICKER
