Guillermo Scott Herren has become a model of 21st-century post-techno productivity, if not necessarily consistency. Qualitatively, that is; there are certainly audible links between and within each of Herren's not-quite-disparate endeavors. Despite being most identified with genres known for their rhythmic punch (hip-hop) and textural layering (glitch electronica), the Prefuse 73 discography is united by Herren's skill with melody, the warm glue binding his often ultra-fractured rhythm and noise together. It's the comforting low-end hum of fusion-era organs, or the bright synth line guiding listeners through his gloriously disorienting vocal and percussion edits.
And no Prefuse album has ever felt so thoroughly edited than the new Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian. An hour-ish mosaic of rhythmic snippets and melodic scribbles, most averaging a minute or less, Ampexian is in the tradition of the single-artist album as delirious self-constructed DJ set, many tracks combined into one flowing composition to discourage shuffle function tomfoolery. Even Prefuse's 2001 debut, the indelible Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives, featured more sketches than songs, but Ampexian is built from stacked fragments of boom-bap and digital ambiance that would bounce right past your half-conscious ear when removed from their context, rather than two-minute interludes slid between traditional three- or four-minute grooves.
So, sure, you could sieve the nerve-jangling music-box miniature "No Lights Still Rock" for some personal playlist, but it's designed (presumably) to follow "Simple Loop Choir", an ultra-chill moment in love. Does this tapestry aesthetic pay off? Yes and no. "No Lights Still Rock", annoying in that overly antic way common to several generations of Warp Records artists, is a bomb dropped to disrupt the listener's reverie, but it comes off as an irritating intrusion rather than a mood-altering segue. That's obviously a problem when the goal is end-to-end enjoyment, with your fingers a comfortable distance from the skip button.
Unless you're making outright background music-- and Ampexian is too restless for that designation-- lack of flow is a cardinal sin when constructing an album that asks to be played first minute to last, especially in an era of endless easy distractions. And perhaps non-fans used to mixing and matching MP3s will suffer Herren's occasional sequencing missteps for the moments when that aforementioned melodic instinct makes him shoot for swoon-worthiness over laptop shock-and-awe. It's hard to imagine any Prefuse project fully abandoning agitation, the thrill of Herren's digital slicing and dicing. But the highlights of Ampexian suggest that if he did want to use the moniker for easier listening, the results would genuinely beguile, rather than demand your full attention and hope for the best.
