interview

He’s also made beautiful music as Savath and Savalas, and Delarosa & Asora, and runs his own label Eastern Developments. It is though, to be fair, the thing that got him noticed, for both good and bad, when his debut album ‘Vocal Studies and Uprock Narratives’ appeared on Warp in 2001. So, as Scott Herren’s second Prefuse 73 album, ‘One Word Extinguisher’ is now ready to go, he’s acutely aware of the preconceptions that exist, to the point where, before I go to meet him I’m sent a list of questions that he’s fed up of being asked.

This sets my alarm bells ringing with thoughts of prima donnas, but lets face it, travelling the world to be asked the same dumb ass questions ad infinitum must be a little like an international groundhog day. And, despite his huge list of admirers, peers and record buyers alike, he has had more than his fair share of dumb ass questions and comments about his music. So we end up talking a lot about the (at the time of writing) impending war in Iraq, and also, you’ll be pleased to hear, a little about his new album.

..says Scott. "I have to get away from that, and I’m not gonna make a record and emulate the first one. The first track on the new record is like a continuation from the last LP, and its supposed to be like ‘fuck you, I’m not gonna do that anymore".

Indeed, the opening track of the new album is called ‘End Of Biters’ and it comes roaring out of the speakers with the same balls out, in your face cuts and beat devastation that typified ‘Vocal Studies.’ From there though the scenery changes slightly. Don’t get me wrong there is no grand departure, but on ‘One Word Extinguisher’ Scott tends to let the rhythms and melodies ride a little longer and shift organically rather than cutting the shit out of them. It’s less about technique, and more about feeling, striking a balance between his more organic overtly emotive, often beatless Savath and Savalas project, and his Prefuse head.

"As far as making music goes", says Scott, "you have to have a part of your soul connected to it. I have to think about my childhood or a person. The point isn’t to make a beat that makes your head nod, or people go ‘God, what is he doing?’ I want it to be something that takes you somewhere, and involves certain emotions."It is hip hop though. Undoubtedly. Despite the fact he’s been taken to the hearts of software obsessed electronica boys, its hip hop in the way that Autechre are. In the way that The Roots, Common, Timbaland, Ursula Rucker, Part 2, The Neptunes, and countless other forward thinkers are. Like them though, Scott constantly finds himself having to justify his music’s ‘hip hopness’.

A writer for American magazine The Stranger even accused Scott (in print) of racial oppression because here was a white guy cutting up and distorting the truths of black MCs. I kid you not. Talking about the war in the Middle East with Scott it strikes me that many people’s version of what constitutes hip hop is akin, obviously in the tiniest of ways, to the USA’s story of Middle Eastern involvement. They choose to highlight the sections that best serve their purpose, rather then telling the full story. It’s frequently conveniently forgotten that hip hop was all about fucking things up, putting things together that hadn’t been put together before, and doing what you weren’t supposed to do. An oft forgotten tradition that Scott Herren takes his place in.

Thank God, in the mainstream there are people like The Neptunes and Timbaland, who do listen to other kinds of music and will take things forward. You gotta take it back to the beginning, re open the spectrum, and say ‘fuck it!"

(This article originally appeared in iDJ Magazine)