Tune of the Week: Prefuse 73

The turn of the 21st century found North American electronic musicians gaining ground on their counterparts in the UK and Europe. Labels the likes of Hefty and Schematic were releasing electronic music that held the same production savvy and influences as that of bigger, more renown labels as Warp and Skam. A major connector for this worldwide zeitgeist was hiphop. After two decades of growth, its influence was permeating into more abstract and experimental music. Its affinity for sampling was fed back onto itself and taken to extremes. Prefuse 73’s music from 2001 is a shining example. Hiphop samples have been chopped up and rearranged to create what sounds like an alien language created from English. The beats skitter, falling in and out of the groove. Glitch Hop was born and its extreme audio editing reverberates through the musical world today within the forms of EDM and dubstep. However, rarely has it ever been done with as much care and funk as with Prefuse’s early 00s work.