The Only She Chapters

VINYL FORMAT. Prefuse 73 songs have always existed in the form of highly detailed and evolved built-to-scale symphonies. However, with The Only She Chapters, Guillermo Scott Herren takes an even more exploratory approach to his methodical chaos. An impressive cast of contributors and unique recording process have helped form a body of music far closer in scope to the most esteemed modern compositional works rather than a record built fundamentally around beats and loops. As the sound within took shape, so did a defined female influence and unifying presence. Says Guillermo: "The process features all women vocalists and voices and the music was recorded very differently from how I normally work." The vocalists here include Zola Jesus, Shara Worden of My Brightest Diamond, Angel Deradoorian and the late Trish Keenan of Broadcast amongst others - all offering their entirely distinct textures and incantations to the already unorthodox musical tapestry and the idea of the album-as-female symbol has extended to collaborators on the visual front as well, enlisting illustrator Yuko Michishita and photographer Angel Ceballos. In addition to the unique approach in galvanizing likeminded contributors (including the "sequencing and eliminating" guidance of friend and collaborator Tyondai Braxton), the musical method employed is remarkable as well, using contact microphones - most often used to record hollow bodied classical instruments, but in this case used for much more, including piano, prepared guitars, woodwinds and cellos - on most of the songs. When meshed with the arsenal of electronics, it embellishes the acoustic sounds with vibrations created from the acoustic instruments in tandem with the female vocals at hand.