Issue #004 (June 2003) Prefuse73 – One Word Extinguisher (Warp) Email this article to a friend Scott Herron has been very busy – recently there has been the reissue of one of Herron’s early works the Crush The Sightseers mini album as Delarosa & Asora and also a recent EP as Savatah & Savalas, both on Hefty. Now the second Prefuse73 is here. Since the last album a lot of other producers have tried their hand (with varying degrees of success) at ‘glitch hop’. Most notably on the Merck there is Machine Drum and Kristuit Salu/Morris Nightingale whose tracks emphasise a rigid mechanical rhythm, Funkstorung’s classic vocal messups, most of the Chocolate Industries crews who travel more and more down straight indie hip hop paths, and Herron’s own protégé Dabrye who steers down a more classic mid-90s hip hop path sounding close at times to NY’s DJ Smash. One Word Extinguisher continues to keep Herron one step ahead of those who follow behind largely because Herron has continued to move down a track that has him aligned with indie hip hop rather than simply developing ‘mad dsp effects’. Of course such effects are still evident but where others use a cold mechanical hand, Prefuse maintains a lighter touch managing to keep a semblance of funk in his beat manipulations and using his guest MCs (Diverse, Mr Lif, Daedelus) and producers (Dabrye, Tommy Guerrero) wisely. Unlike Vocal Studies & Uprock Narratives the new record leaves the MCs pretty much intact and opts for shorter tracks (21 main titles plus two bonus tracks) each clocking in around 2 minutes with plenty of interludes. Short attention span hip hop? Maybe, but as many other commentators have argued, One Word Extinguisher is a proper ‘new millennium’ hip hop record trying hard to resuscitate the ancient cut&paste plunderphonics and sound science of true old-skool hip hop. Sebastian Chan