It's hard not to battle for the glitches and risks of Prefuse 73. It's hard not to love the nerdiness involved in his samples or the general love you feel in each backbeat or collaboration he oversees. Each chance Prefuse takes, beat he makes or band he forms is a formed and calculated idea that deserves praise. It's just that, even against the general consensus, sometimes too much is enough.
In the case of Preparations, the over-the-top glitches and sidetracks are worthy of exclamation in some cases, but gaudy and inaccessible (even more so than ever before) in others. In the case of the excellent "The Class of 73 Bells," the minimalist approach lets the song resonate. The opposite effect is true on "Beaten Thursday," where the conglomeration of noise makes for a still sensible vibe worthy of attention to the slightest detail. It's the in between songs that render the album ineffective and ineffectual. When the mind is stimulated to remember too much, it skips the minutia and imbeds the bolder elements of each song. The drums of John Stainer on "Smoking Red," the bass line on "I Knew You Were Gonna Go," the beat behind "Aborted Hugs,"—all of these things resonate more acutely than they should due to the swirl of beeps, skips and scratches that inhabit the forefront of the song.
Not that any of this makes the album a disaster, by any means. The success of Prefuse 73 has been decadence, but in the case of Preparations, the details are getting more and more grand while the songs are getting less and less enthralling. This disappointment weighs heavily on the listener. As one of my friends put it, "It's like this is better background music than personal music." I think that sums up the way I have always wanted the Prefuse 73 albums to go. I want them to be less intense and more personable. The noisiness and filler turn me away. Moreover, Preparations' best moments make me long for past albums, something I never did before, while sucking me in to it's cavalcade of mish-mashed mixes. Though I think this is a solid effort, I'm forced to idealize a sound I never had to before. |