Prefuse 73 - 'Surrounded By Silence' (Warp)
4/5
By: Thomas Hannan
A glance at the track-listing and you'll think there's a danger of this sounding more like a cumbersome project than an album; too many guest-appearances to make a properly coherent body of work. There are a couple of ways to avoid this danger - either the person orchestrating the whole affair has a vision complete enough to warrant collecting this amount of supplementary talent under the one guise, or the guests in question are genuinely in possession of sufficient talent to justify the inclusion of each and every one them. Scott Herren (or Prefuse 73, if you aren't his mum) is lucky enough not only to be a mastermind in the driving-seat but to have made acquaintances with some rather gifted folk along his way. 'Surrounded by Silence' presents a fair few of them.
The mission accommodates the masses of collaborators with ease because coherence was never really on the cards in the first place. This is a highly confusing album, in places wonderfully messy, appropriately unconventional but never in the least abrasive. It's a constant stream of twinkling little tunes, even though very few that litter its hour are in the least bit memorable, a collage of squeaks and samples carefully arranged to create the illusion of melody.
It takes a while to recognise quite how ambient and tuneful everything here is, as all that really stands out for the first few listens are the beats and the rhymes. The pace is never particularly hectic, but it is erratic even when being quite laid-back, so much so that it's difficult to focus on anything else. Early on, it can come across as quite uneasy, an uncomfortable and jittery voyage. Once the beats have started to make sense (or, at least, become familiar), it's the turn of the rest of the track to play its bizarre, tuneful trickery. It'll plateau out somewhere, you hope. In the meantime you enjoy the slight sense of chaos to everything. It's these layers of interest unfolding over time that are the mark of truly fine production - not for a while, if indeed ever, will you be certain you've really figured this one out.
Much as you should stick it out with regards to the more progressive moments of this little hip-hop gem (hip-hop - oh yeah, that's what it is in essence, even if it admirably tries its hand at so much more), its obsession with having to be interesting above immediate at all times is made a little more frustrating when something pops up that knocks you off your guard with its sheer gall. When Prefuse 73 and friends do this, they do it properly - 'Hide Ya Face' (featuring El-P and Ghostface on the mic) is perhaps precisely what people mean when they refer to something as 'sick' in a complimentary way, Masta Killa and GZA's appearance on 'Just The Thought' manages to combine the ever present darkness with an instantly captivating class, and 'Sabbatical With Options' is a perfect combination of Herren's love of sparkling ambience and Aesop Rock's distinctive drawling rap. Why can't they do this more often?
Because that would be to miss the point entirely. This is a mess, but like all good challenges, there's a pay off. At first, it comes in when one of the aforementioned highlights rears its head from amidst the mire. Then instead of the clouds clearing, you actually start to enjoy them also, to become aware of their peculiarities and fond of their eccentricities. Eventually, you should appreciate it like few other records you own. Nobody said it was going to be easy.
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