What began in the late-'90s as yet another outlet for Guillermo Scott Heron’s constantly diverging and evolving glitch-hop sound has officially become its own entity with the release of his third full-length and first for Anti-, Golden Pollen. The most notably confirming aspect is the fact that “glitch” has almost nothing to do with the album. Guillermo – whom you may know better as Prefuse 73 – leaves all the weight on lush organica. There were always moments in his first two albums (a certain serrated synth sound here, a warm hip-hop sample there) that gave away or at least heavily hinted at Heron’s identity. All of those moments have been smoothed over by a commitment to live instrumentation and ethereal, non-English singing. The emphasis is no longer on making it sound more like "world music." This is simply non-Western music at its best, drawing equal influence from hip-hop, downtempo, and post-folk. While I am personally more drawn to his Prefuse 73 and earlier Savath output, I must say this is Guillermo at his true artistic peak. Golden Pollen is the type of album that lasts beyond the reach of any one style or fad. You gotta respect that, as well as the fact that, though he’s one of the biggest names in his field, he’s still pushing himself to go that much farther. If all producers had his kind of drive, there’d be no war. Perhaps more drugs, though, but that’s a trade-off I’m all for.