Prefuse 73 EP paper-thin

When Prefuse 73’s first album came out in 2001 it created a rift among critics and others in the music community. Some people declared producer Scott Herren a genius, citing his complex beats and chopped up vocals as the dawning of a new era in electronic music. Others said his music was too abstract to be hip-hop or too urban to be electronic. The rest just thought their CD players were skipping.

Four years later, Herren is still reworking other people’s creations, but now he’s chopping acoustic guitars instead of indistinguishable raps. His latest EP, aptly titled “Reads The Books,” is made up of samples from electronic rock group The Books’s body of work.

While the description “electro-folk-hop” fits the disc’s general style, the EP’s eight tracks are not nearly as revolting as such a term would imply. Indeed, the short journey from “Pagina Uno” to “Pagina Ocho” can be considered pleasant, but can hardly be called spectacular.

Traces of Herren’s signature sound can be heard all over the album, but his fingerprints decorate this collage more than they smudge it. “Pagina Cinco” and most of the other songs demonstrate an undercurrent of emotional depth-something that many of Warp Records’ other electronic artists have difficulty feigning.

While a song such as “Pagina Tres” contains enough of Prefuse 73’s trademark effects to entice followers, the collaboration’s end result is a tamer, more conservative sound that is rather similar to Herren’s work as Savath & Savalas.

The closing track, featuring gorgeous vocals from Claudia Maria Deheza, is one of only a handful of moments where your ears perk up after being mostly unengaged as a listener.

“Reads The Books” may bear little resemblance to Brian Eno’s music, but it still passes unnoticeably much like Eno’s ambient work. The similarity is hardly flattering though since Herren, unlike Eno, wanted his listeners to pay direct attention to the songs here. The general problem then, aside from the disc’s meager length, is that the tracks are mostly interchangeable.

Euphemistically, the 23-minute EP is a “page-turner,” but realistically, “Reads The Books” is a bit of a hard sell. Two tracks check in at less than a minute and another was included on Prefuse 73’s last full-length album, leaving five real “songs” to explore. Herren’s die-hard fans, for whom the disc is essential, who will at least be satisfied while they await some (presumably) more substantial work. Anyone else will see “Reads The Books” as more paper-thin than a must-read.