Prefuse 73

Surrounded by Silence (Warp)

A A A Comments By Kelly Shindler Thursday, Mar 24 2005

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No, your Prefuse 73 CD is not skipping. It's just the wizard of schizophrenic enterprise, Scott Herren (who also records as Delarosa & Asora, Savath & Savalas, Piano Overlord, and La Coreccion), flashing his mixing skills. On Surrounded by Silence, his fourth Prefuse album, Herren scratches and knob-twiddles his way through a back catalog of beats, vocals, and samples, citing more sources than a doctoral dissertation. This time, he also features a laundry list of contemporaries, sidling up next to Aesop Rock, Beans, Broadcast, the Books, Kazu from Blonde Redhead, and more. Their presence is recognizable, in a Cuisinarted-and-sutured-back-together kinda way. With rhyme masters El-P and Ghostface in the limelight, "HideYaFace" is the best hip-hop single released in at least a year, and Masta Killa and GZA's "Just the Thought" follows close behind. Prefuse's friendly alliance of hip-hop with everything else is innovative and addictive. Herren's thoughtful splicing of encyclopedic influences into his own vision makes him one of the most talented, forward-thinking artists around. Luckily for us, a follow-up is already in the works and will feature Tunde from TV on the Radio, Madlib, Diplo, Four Tet, and Mia Doi Todd, among others.

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