Guillermo Scott Herren's many aliases-- Prefuse 73, Savath & Savalas, Delarosa and Asora, Piano Overlord to name a few-- make it easier for him to organize wav files on his laptop but, as counter-intuitive as it may seem, the self-imposed categorisations could be holding him back. Now, when he releases a Prefuse 73 record, it's supposed to sound like a Prefuse 73 record-- blips, bleeps, bap, mood, and a couple of friends offering rhymes and/or production flourishes. In a way, the multiple monikers make Herren a slave to expectation. Such is his plight, from the next-Shadow heights of 2003's One Word Extinguisher and Extinguished: Outtakes to the overcrowded mainstream-baiting blunder Surrounded by Silence to the automatically forgotten pseudo album Security Screenings, the producer has largely squandered his Extinguisher love with a series of missteps and diminished retreads. I was ready to deem the numbingly characteristic Preparations another so-so step in the same direction, but then I listened to the album's "bonus disc," Interregnums, which isn't a Prefuse album (or a Savath album or a Delarosa album...) and is all the better for it.
First thing: Interregnums (def: a gap in continuity) is a bonus in the sense that it's an unexpected benefit, but it is not a bonus in the sense that it's a shameless collection of unworthy ephemera used to sucker loyal fans. In fact, Interregnums is six minutes longer than Preparations. The disc finds Herren in full-on composer mode as its 15 lush suites do away with all the flashy cut-and-paste sampling theatrics, leaving us with a grandiose version the unavoidable melancholy that permeates most of his best material. It's Gil Evans' cool crossed with John Williams' sentimentality and the tortured soul of Endtroducing... and it's a welcome surprise.
Interregnums' swelling orchestrations were apparently borne out of the string-laden pieces originally prepared for Preparations. But while they're buried underneath the typical micro-programming and airy organs on that album, Interregnums fleshes them out into flowery instrumental ballads anachronistic in their sweet sadness. For all his break beat panache, Herren has always marked his Prefuse albums with considerable bleeding heartbreak (see: emo-glitchers like the unmistakably overcast "Storm Returns" off Extinguisher or Surrounded's stop-start hip-hop lament "Now You're Leaving").
On Interregnums, such wrenching sensations are exposed, embellished, and expanded upon. "The Last" throbs quietly like a leftover instrumental from Björk's insular masterpiece Vespertine. Meanwhile, "Let It Ring Ensembles" utilizes a saintly choir and emergency broadcast bleats to recall Sigur Rós trapped between earth-ending crescendos. Herren tracks his tears with lavish silent movie strings that all but write their own screenplay-- "Thorough Light" sweeps with star-gazed longing and the near-seven minute "Spacious and Dissonant Part 2" applies the same Prefuse-style ADD beat making technique to grand emotionalism, swinging from playful to eerie to depressive like so many French art films. With its overt melodrama, the disc can occasionally fall into soap opera-soundtrack territory but, more often than not, its luxurious textures aptly convey its desires.
Oh yeah, the actual new Prefuse 73 album called Preparations. Starting things off with a 31-second intro featuring diced vox and a queasy, uncertain atmosphere, Herren could be forcing a comparison to the similarly ignited Extinguisher. But instead of segueing into a blistering kiss-off like "The End of Biters - International", we get "Beaten Thursdays", a Prefuse-by-numbers groove that bumps along inoffensively before petering out. While there's nothing outright embarrassing on Preparations-- no mismatched collaborations or fast-forward-itching Beans guest shots-- there's little that holds up aside Herren's most accomplished work. Gone is the humor and anger that sometimes livened the Extinguished discs, replaced with a relentless mid-tempo ambivalence. "I Knew You Were Gonna Go" hints at something deeper than a shoulder shrug with its see-saw lilt and closing vocal sample of a bygone version of Jimmy Webb's "Do What You Gotta Do", and "Smoking Red" takes decent advantage of the talents of indie rock's most furious drummer, Battles' John Stanier, but they're exceptions. Even at 46 minutes, Preparations is wearying; it's the same Prefuse tricks once more, with less feeling.
If Herren had integrated the Prefuse qua Prefuse Preparations with the riskier, more rewarding Interregnums, he would've ended up with a double-album hodge-podge not unlike label mate Aphex Twin's fascinatingly bipolar Drukqs. As is, though, Interregnums will be considered the lesser disc due to its unfortunate "bonus" status, which is a shame because it trumps its predictable sister CD in almost every way imaginable. In a Pitchfork news interview from earlier this year, Herren hypothesized about his upcoming release: "I feel like half the kids that buy it are just going to throw [Interregnums] away and keep [Preparations]." He should be emboldened to know it might just end up the other way around.
