Albums Compilations/Mixes 3"/7"/10"/12"/EPs
|
Prefuse 73: Security Screenings Though Guillermo Scott Herren's latest Prefuse 73 outing revisits the One Word Extinguisher-Extinguished: Outtakes template by following a full-length (Surrounded By Silence) with a mini-album, Security Screenings is no match for the eminently more satisfying Extinguished: Outtakes. First things first: aside from one-shot appearances by Four Tet and TV On The Radio's Babatunde Adebimpe, Security Screenings doesn't perpetuate the 'collaboration' theme of Surrounded By Silence. Instead, the new disc (the title Herren's dig at airport security in the post 9-11 era) represents a 'transitional' move designed to pave the way towards the next Prefuse material (apparently one more album only, according to the man himself). And while it often does sound like an artist undergoing metamorphosis and struggling to break free of a constraining signature style, too much of its seventeen pieces are given over to half-baked experiments (“Breathe,” a pointless channel-surfing interlude) and superfluous voice interludes (the disc opens with Herren mangling melodramatic film repartee in the overlong “The Letter: “P”” and closes dispiritingly with lame dialogue in “We Leave You in a Cloud of Thick Smoke and Sleep Outro”), though it's hard not to laugh during Herren's hilarious radio interview (“Illiterate Interlude”). “Creating Cyclical Headaches,” the Four Tet collab, amounts to little, with Herren overlaying a sunny strut (reminiscent of Everything Ecstatic 's “Smile Around the Face”) with distorted feedback fuzz—a wasted opportunity—while “Mud in Your Breath” is more Dabrye than Prefuse. Still, decent cuts like “Keeping Up With Your Quota,” “No Origin,” and the clanging “Weight Watching” confirm that Herren's talent for dazzling head-nodders and free jazz-Prefuse stutter remains intact while the entrancing “With Dirt and Two Texts—Later Version With Love” and “Matrimonioids… (for Elvin + Susan Estala)” nicely spotlight his warmer and soulful side. It'll be interesting to hear how Security Screenings holds up years from now, whether it'll be slotted into the 'Essential' (not likely) or 'For fans only' (probably) category. Though it doesn't negate Herren's status as a visionary post-hip-hop producer, the release still comes across as a less-than-essential chapter in the still-unfolding Prefuse story.March 2006
|
