Pioneering electronic musician and producer Prefuse 73 aka Guillermo Scott Herren releases the latest single, “The End Of Air,” from his new album, New Strategies for Modern Crime Vol. 1 (Lex Records), out March 22, 2024. One of the darkest releases of his career, New Strategies for Modern Crime was inspired by an experience Herren had while living in New York. He reflects: “I was living in Manhattan for a bit and I had this app where you could monitor crime levels. It would tell you someone was walking around in their underwear with a machete at 3 AM. I think post-COVID, the city of New York had this fascination with crime reporting. It didn’t really make much sense, so I wanted to channel this dark landscape – where crime has become a strange form of entertainment and a journalistic distraction – into the sound.” 

“I always have a movie playing on the projector behind me in the studio,” reveals Herron of his creative process. “It might be a 1980s horror with Tom Savini gore effects or just an old Fellini film; they tend to be playing on a loop. I will turn around from the mixing board and just stare at the images to get inspired.” The reenergized veteran speaks with the giddy excitement of someone working on their first-ever album.

This cinematic method of creating an enticing gumbo of electronic, jazz and rap is especially prevalent on the 48-year-old’s new album. Whether pairing up MF DOOM and Aesop Rock to have a lo-fi rap existential crisis; bluntly bending an innocent Linda Perhacs psych-folk song about swirling raindrops, so it sounds more like a lost alien signal filtering in from a techno rave on another galaxy; or using the sounds of kids banging their rulers and pencils on a school table to create DIY euphoria and an innovative mimicry of Doug E. Fresh-level beatboxing, Herren (who has also operated creatively under aliases including Delarosa, Asora, and Piano Overlord) has been a consistent innovator. Having collaborated with a diverse array of artists, including MF Doom, Ghostface Killah, GZA, El-P, Sam Prekop, Helado Negro, and more, his work reflects a constant evolution, with each album offering a new perspective on the intersection of electronic and hip-hop music. 

Whether New Strategies for Modern Crime paints a vivid, Philip K. Dick-esque movie in your mind or not, it’s clear the artist known as Prefuse 73 is continuing to push forward artistically.