Prefuse 73

Fans who marveled at the dark, ambient beats of Prefuse 73's earlier work—in particular, his debut Vocal Studies + Uprock Narrative—will be happy to know that Everything She Touched Turned Ampexian, is a nice return to form, but a rather tricky one. At first, it feels like a Prefuse mixtape. If you take a quick gander at the track listing, you'll notice this contains 29 tracks, with numerous songs failing to reach the one-minute mark.

That said, they all blend together rather seamlessly. While the first third is a more fuzzy, mellow affair, the second third sees Prefuse starting to stretch the beats into something more noteworthy—meaning, you can start to feel the grooves during "Whipcream Eyepatch" and "Regato." The last third is where things start to space out a bit, with Prefuse mixing in his love of vocal looping with a more computer, minimalist driven element. The floaty feeling of "Digan Lo" sounds like it was composed for a video game and "No Lights Still Rock" emotes in a more Aphex Twin-ish way. Computer bleeps drive through a layered, atmospheric "la, la's." While Ampexian is still pure Prefuse, that it feels like 3 consecutive EP's stuffed onto one disc give it something for everyone. Everyone who likes dark, downtempo-ish electronica, that is.

—Michael D. Ayers
04.13.09

Spinning through 29 tracks in just under 50 minutes, Scott Herren's sixth proper LP as Prefuse 73 offers more of the same musical madness for fans of his no-attention-span cut-ups -- and that's a good thing. With remarkably few guests and remarkably few samples (at least recognizable ones), it's basic Prefuse material, but with dozens of ideas and delicious dead ends. Anyone looking for a differentiator between this and recent Prefuse material may look in vain, but there's slightly more electro than hip-hop going on here. Also, as in the past, there are occasional glimpses of his other projects bleeding through. Beginning with "DEC. Machine Funk All ERA's," with its airy introduction and female vocal samples, Herren reels off a series of tracks that switch back and forth between cavernous hip-hop and airy folktronica with vocal samples, all the time spending less than two minutes per cut. The flavor of a spinning radio dial has never been stronger, especially as Herren stirs in nods to more types of music, like glimpses of Japanese and Spanish forms that are ever so brief (naturally). ~ John Bush, All Music Guide