On Scott Herren’s fifth full-length Prefuse album, we get what might be his most interesting album to date. While One Word Extinguisher still holds up as one of the great breakup albums of all time, I believe this one is destined to become the undiscovered classic of his career.

It doesn’t have a clear theme, the title makes you scratch your head, and we zoom through 29 tracks in under 50 minutes as they all blend together into one long sweeping album. It’s warm and smooth and jarring and disjointed all at once. It’s hip hop, it’s glitch, it’s techno, it’s dub, and it’s none of these.

Looking at the album cover and listening to the album, I like to think about exploring uncharted territory. You’re not in control, and around every turn is something different, exciting, and uncharted. It could be warm and dry, it could be full of lush vegetation, it could be a cold, dark cave. That’s what Ampexian feels like to me. It’s like hopping into a ship that Herren is driving and just sitting back and enjoying the view.

It’s not an album where you can go, “Oh, you haven’t heard it? Check this song out!” Instead it’s an album that needs to be on where you can just sit back and listen. The first time through you might enjoy it, but this is an album that rewards upon multiple listens. There are so many shifts and layers and moods it just grows. And that’s why I’m pegging this to be album that we’ll be talking about as an underappreciated classic years down the line.