Prefuse 73: Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives
I have never been a big fan of hip hop, especially commercial hip hop. In college, my friend Paul would try and turn me onto the likes of Method Man and Wu-tang. I would have none of it, there just wasn’t much for me to latch on to. I could appreciate the rhythm and the rhymes, but beyond that it was just more rapping with some back beats. Later in life, I discovered that I quite like hip hop, if it fits into a few categories. 1) It has an agenda that I can related to, example Aesop Rock, Fermented Reptile. 2) It’s incredibly catchy and fun to sing along with, example Tribe Called Quest, Jurassic Five. Or 3) The music itself is compelling and is an integral part of the lyrics. Enter Prefuse 73’s Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives.
Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives is one of those fusion of genre albums that makes you wonder why hasn’t anyone done something like this before? Sure there have been electronic elements in hip hop songs before, but nothing that I’ve heard uses them as a integral part of the album, the lyrics are the beats. Glitchy/IDM beats and stuttered vocals pepper this entire disc with brief ambient interludes and cut and paste speaking parts. This is taken to its pinnacle with “Point to B”, the skipping vocals become so staccato you wonder if they will come to a complete stop or just continue to break down into fuzz and white noise.
This is more than just another IDM release from Warp though. Scott Herren uses the electronic parts so much and so efficiently that the tracks were the rapper’s voice isn’t distorted, are the ones really stand out. “Life/Death” featuring Mikah 9 and “Blacklist” featuring MF Doom and Aesop Rock, and make a merely good glitch-hop album into a great hip hop album. I’m certainly not going to place Vocal Studies + Uprock Narratives entirely into that genre though, especially since “Last Night” features a slightly digital stuttering Sam Prekop, post-rocker of Sea and Cake fame. Another monkey wrench tossed into the hip hop stereotype machine, but it’s a insanely mellow track that stands out from the raw bravado that the other rappers on the album put forth.
If anything comes of this release, I hope mainstream hip hop give Scott Herren a call to produce a few of their albums.
