Prefuse 73: On Tour, A Japanese One...

Almost a decade into his recording career – with Warp Records as Prefuse 73 at least – Scott Herren seems to be spewing out releases without too much effort at this point. Both Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian and The Forest Of Oversensitivity were released within a few months of each other and now this.

It’s not that the discs that the producer has recently been crafting are lackluster in any way, but this latest Japan only endeavor, entitled Meditation on Meditations, is an extension of those aforementioned works.

Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian arrived with a cover sporting art that could just have easily been on an album from Yes. Fans need to realize that Herren is attempting to spread out his sound. Of course, that’s not what actually happened as his last Warp long player was just another (well crafted) suite of songs. But the mélange of old and new is not only a precept that hip hop and by extension all sample based music was founded, but also the way in which an artist or musician maintains a career. So while Herren doesn’t move too far a field from the past, he’s able to re-examine his own work here on Meditation on Meditations.

“Such a Face” – and a few other tracks - sports some production sounds that were culled from and for earlier releases. That being said, the setting that everything’s hung on comes off drastically different even if the song remains more than a viable candidate for any sort of forth coming career retrospective.

Even the titles utilized for the works here – “Return from Home” – harken back to the early aughties and the time during which Herren made a name for himself. But in that title too is a confusing elixir of past and present. Can one return from home? Or do you return to it.

The clever (?) word play here is at once a comment on the music that Meditations puts forth as well as the culture that surrounds not just rap music, but all popular musics. As a forager of sounds, Herren is acutely aware of all of the recycling that goes on. And within the hip hop world it’s a necessity. In pop music, though, it seems as if the reconstituted usually vies for a spot amongst those that are referred to as visionary. How else can one account for the endless highs and lows of garage rock? What are we at now, in it’s forth go round?

Regardless of the potential and theoretical underpinnings that Mediation on Mediations arrives with, the disc is just more of the same high quality stuffs from Herren under the auspices of his Prefuse 73 moniker. If you’re already aware of this producer, the disc won’t move you one way or the other, into or out of appreciation for his talent. And while it might not be a bad place to begin a taste for Herren’s music, the fact that the disc is only currently available in Japan (and of course the internets) renders it a toughy to track down.