The freshest hip-hop to come down the line in a while. Prefuse 73's debut, VOCAL STUDIES + UPROCK NARRATIVES, uses cut-up MCs and glitch sounds to craft some of the funkiest tunes to come out of the ATL since the advent of crunk. They take not only bit of lyric, but the moments when the MCs take a breath -- making for a completely unexpected rhythm and flow. It's like anti-crunk. "Nuno" has such tremendous soul that you don't even notice how carefully chopped the track is. "Point to 8" shows that you can rock the mic even if you're not using whole words, and the horns in "Five Minutes Away" counterbalance the moodier sounds elsewhere in the track. "Last Light" is glitch soul at its best, even as it leads out on some country roots-rock guitar. Even when he gives MCs a chance to shine on "Blacklist," his tight beats keep them on track (it helps that it's Aesop Rock as well). "Afternoon Love-In" has that floaty sense of romance (the flutes help with this). Even the ridiculous telephone messages on "7th Message" get transformed into a rocking track. The future of hip-hop? I hope so.

A wonderful mix of hiphop beats and brilliant samples indeed!!! Who's says that rappers are always needed to make real hiphop?

OUT OF IT! some of the most interesting, and inventive music ive heard in a long time. Sorta like chop suey with a tonne of vocal and who knows what sort of samples (theyve been diced up so fine its hard to distinguish what half of them are, voice? synth? fax machine??) thrown in the beat blender with the end result being something which is kinda undescribable but utterly delectable.