Pitchfork

Who is Scott Herren, really? He's recorded under so many aliases, it's hard to know whether his birthname is itself just another ruse. Granted, Herren's never been a man of many words: all of his projects, to this point, have been primarily solo and instrumental-- the closest he's come to vocals are through the cut-up guests and female oohs that appear on his now-legendary albums as Prefuse 73.

When he recently put his Delarosa + Asora project out of its glitched-out agony, you could say it split in two: the live studio work continued under the name Savath & Savalas, while the hard-cutting intricacies were swallowed by the Prefuse LPs. Back in 1999, Savath & Savalas's debut, Folk Songs for Trains, Trees and Honey came off not as the duo or trio that its names would suggest, but as a single source of the kind of warmth and thickness seldom found in hip-hop or post-rock. With Herren on drums, bass, and keyboards on most tracks, it was all of a piece: slow, meaty beats overlaid with layers of bells, vibes and Rhodes for a wide open feel, with the occasional synthetic flourish. The 2002 Rolls and Waves EP was jazzier and slicker, but clearly another live-but-alone project.

So Herren deserves admiration for taking such an extreme left turn with Apropa't, a spectral collaboration with a Barcelona singer, with songs written together in Spanish and Catalan. True, he's been running the Eastern Developments label in Atlanta for years, helping friends like Kopernik and Lori Scacco put out just this sort of sleepy, eccentric album. But it's still a shock to hear the planet's sickest beatsmith sing airy backup vocals while strumming a nylon-string guitar. Now that the Prefuse persona is so well-established, of course, you'd be right to wonder what he has to lose if a side project like this flops; he's been touring as Prefuse straight through its release, after all. But if you take him at his word, he's not dabbling. On his now-native Barcelona: "I'm not a tourist. I went there for my soul. What we're doing is a great expression of why I'm there." And about the kitsch-value of a token Latin project: "We're not on some pseudo-anything." He even calls himself Guillermo now.

I need to get something off my chest. "On the last Prefuse record I told somebody that it was a break-up record," Herren is quoted in a recent Urb cover story. "So what happened? Everybody asked me about it and I had to relive that moment over and over again. It drove me to insanity. So this time I swore I wouldn't do it, but I'm doing it." Readers, I may or may not be the one responsible, but early last year, he told me this, and I instantly spread the information all over the face of this tan-on-cream website. And I would do it again, happily, because the torment of rejection was scribbled all over that album for the world to see. For all Herren's red herrings about "psychedelic Spanish steez" and the "is what it is"-ness of his latest effort, Apropa't also fits with what he has revealed about his life last year: that in settling into expatriate life in Barcelona and struggling to accept the permanent absence of the Spanish father he never met, he happened into a slow-burning but all-consuming friendship with a Catalan singer named Eva Puyuelo Muns.

This is really her record. She is responsible for its consistently cool, bittersweet feel, which feels like it could accompany a tale of star-crossed love set in the Arctic summer. All the songs are put together simply-- vague hooks broken up by chronic lulls where the verses should be-- and the tracks bleed together as if drawn from a place where eerie music is always writing itself. The tone is reserved and cryptic, as if Scott and Eva have taken some heartfelt lyrics in English and then translated them into Catalan to keep us from prying too deeply into their business. The focus remains on Eva's voice, even as Herren undergirds it with the help of Josh Abrams, John Herndon, and John McEntire at Soma Studios in Chicago.

The album starts with a burst of noise that's dirtier and more restrained than the one that sparks Folk Songs. Immediately we're in a cold, bright place: jangling chimes instead of vibes, lean driving drums instead of fat beats, and a mess of flutes, harmonicas and synths weaving us right out of the picture. "Balcón Sin Flores" drops a haunting lament behind a veil of twining metal reeds, and "A La Nit" provides another brief taste of trees and honey, with a warm fretless bass bending into cribbed cinematic strings. Halfway through this short album, however, its tracks have failed to change keys, and one gets the keen sense that Apropa't is going nowhere. "Ràdio Llocs Espacials" and "Víctima Belleza" reinforce the suspicion, oddly spare lullabies with steamy pauses instead of verses. Too late, "Interludio 44" distinguishes itself with a refreshing array of pure tones, with erratic envelopes and stochastic pitch changes adding up to a slow harmonic drift. Some later songs are just wordless humming, not neutral, but designed to somehow lure us in while at the same time warning us off.

This may be Herren's least accessible project to date. Like sand, the harder you squeeze it, the more it slips through your fingers. Apropa't fades into the walls if you listen too long. But maybe it's just trying to keep some unfathomable secret. So far, it's done a good job.