Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian

Album Review

Spinning through 29 tracks in just under 50 minutes, Scott Herren's sixth proper LP as Prefuse 73 offers more of the same musical madness for fans of his no-attention-span cut-ups — and that's a good thing. With remarkably few guests and remarkably few samples (at least recognizable ones), it's basic Prefuse material, but with dozens of ideas and delicious dead ends. Anyone looking for a differentiator between this and recent Prefuse material may look in vain, but there's slightly more electro than hip-hop going on here. Also, as in the past, there are occasional glimpses of his other projects bleeding through. Beginning with "DEC. Machine Funk All ERA's," with its airy introduction and female vocal samples, Herren reels off a series of tracks that switch back and forth between cavernous hip-hop and airy folktronica with vocal samples, all the time spending less than two minutes per cut. The flavor of a spinning radio dial has never been stronger, especially as Herren stirs in nods to more types of music, like glimpses of Japanese and Spanish forms that are ever so brief (naturally).