Prefuse 73 is the one-man orchestra Guillermo Scott Heron. Preparations maybe his sixth album, but this was a decidedly solo effort. Instead of surrounding himself with collaborators, he’s practically gone back to his roots here. Infusing influences and music from such wide ranging places as Cuban, America and Spain.

Being on the Warp label though, you know this isn’t going to be World music. What we have here is a rich tapestry of music perfectly woven from beats, samples, live instruments and vocals to form one continuous flow of sound. It’s hard to approach albums as magpie in nature as this, the influences and samples come from such disparate locales, that you’d need some kind of musical globe with a million different pins to show it properly. Each track bristles with its own combination of beats, drums, synthesisers and live instruments occasionally embellished with vocals or spoken word samples.

Standout centre-piece is “Class of 73 Bells” which features New Work psychedelic act School of Seven Bells. The track swirls, swoops and flows like something straight out of the Summer of Love. Its beautiful vocals an angelic but rhythmic backdrop to fuzzy guitars, clipped beats and chants. “Smoking Red” sounds like something David Holmes has been crafting for his recent deluge of soundtracks. Drums scatter, smash and dominate the funky bass-line which has a distinct 70’s vibe before it breaks down through some sax and Patti Smith-esque poetry. What helps is the fact that the awesome live drums are provided by Battles superemo John Stanier. When you can call on guests like these, you’re always going to be onto a winner.

It sometimes descends into wine-bar dance music in places. I can imagine trendy, cool kids sipping cocktails whilst swinging their anorexic hips to “Girlfriend Boyfriend”. However, I’ll forgive him for that as he treats us to the widescreen electronica of “Prog Version Slowly Crushed” which bristles with energy through its funky bass and rhythms, whilst the slow string laden “I Knew You Were Gonna Go” is a beautiful slice of sampled choirs and slow beats.

This infusion of seemingly separate channels of music has been going on for some time, Four Tet being the most recent example. But what Guillermo has managed to achieve, to the large extent here, is to make a perfect pattern from a whole host of threads that would normally clash and look out of place.
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Links
Prefuse 73 [official site] [myspace] [buy it]