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There's nothing Herren can't and won't do on this record.
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One Word Extinguisher shows a range of emotional grappling usually foreign to instrumental hip-hop.
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This record is a wonderful accomplishment instead of relying on tricks and methods explored on earlier records, Herren expands via reflection, tracing sounds back to their roots in hopes of finding a new path.
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UncutAn endlessly fascinating maze of sound.... This decade's Endtroducing..., possibly. [Jun 2003, p.98]
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A set of electronica that's nearly as challenging as Autechre's relentlessly academic beat manipulation but just as funky and instantly gratifying as a Fatboy Slim flag-waver.
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The WireIsn't so much a leftfield perversion of HipHop as it is a restoration of the genre to its avant garde roots. [#231, p.67]
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Herren takes what amounts to a series of completely artificial electronic noises and whips them into one of the most soulful, funky, relentlessly compelling albums since the Neptunes' last outing.
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Perhaps the greatest expansion in Herren's sound is the range of emotion conveyed in One Word Extinguisher.
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SpinIt's a busy, dazzling record, though more detours--like "Storm Returns," a dreamy guitar-and-beats collage--would help aerate things. [Aug 2003, p.118]
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At 23 tracks (including two strong bonus cuts at the end), One Word Extinguisher simply tries to say too much, dragging noticeably during the final third, thus weakening the final impact.
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Unlikely to be defined by any passing scene, Herren seems likely to go his merry way in the way production auteurs do, body-swerving ham-fisted attempts at pigeon-holing or categorisation.
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This is meticulously constructed and flawlessly engineered music.
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Q MagazineSounds like a malfunctioning iPod loaded with The Neptunes, Aphex Twin circa Windowlicker and The Last Poets--only with all the fragments miraculously falling in just the right places. [Jun 2003, p.104]
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UrbStill more for headphones than headspins, but offering plenty for the heads. [#104, p.96]
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One Word Extinguisher opens and closes with a batch of great songs, but gets a bit soggy in the middle, treading similar ground several times over again and tossing out tracks that feel too similar to what we've already heard from him.
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MagnetPlayfulness ultimately wins over arty schlock. [#59, p.106]
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The rhythms have grown more techy and layered, wilding with drill-happy 16ths (on "Busy Signal," he and L.A.'s like-minded Daedalus cut up a human beatbox then go machine-gunning with piano notes), or throbbing and crackling out of an electronic ether (the radio-transmission lurch of "Detchibe") as though he's been studying glitchy Europeans.
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MojoThe season's most deliriously funky beats. [Jun 2003, p.113]
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VibeEven if it doesn't always work, this is as imaginative an approach to hip hop production as the underground has ever generated. [June 2003, p.157]
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One Word Extinguisher doesn't shock the way Vocal Studies... did but, if his debut drew the vivid hip-hop/electronic blueprint, Herren convincingly takes his plans and constructs something big with the follow-up.
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Alternative PressOriginal, brilliant and so avant-garde that less than one percent of the population will be able to sit through it. [Jun 2003, p.110]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 20 out of 22
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Mixed: 0 out of 22
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Negative: 2 out of 22
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LeeFeb 10, 2006illest cd of his ive heard. He is the master of error and distortion on any moog.
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mattaJul 11, 2005Totally solid all the way throughout. Just wish there was some guest appearances because the tracks with vocals are all good.
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marioMar 2, 2005