Endtroducing... (Deluxe Edition) [PA] [Slipcase] (CD - 1996)

As a suburban Californian kid, DJ Shadow tended to treat hip-hop as a musical innovation, not as an explicit social protest, which goes a long way toward explaining why his debut album Endtroducing... sounded like nothing else at the time of its release. Using hip-hop, not only its rhythms but its cut-and-paste techniques, as a foundation, Shadow created a deep, endlessly intriguing world on Endtroducing, one where there are no musical genres, only shifting sonic textures and styles. Shadow created the entire album from samples, almost all pulled from obscure, forgotten vinyl, and the effect is that of a hazy, half-familiar dream -- parts of the record sound familiar, yet it's clear that it only suggests music you've heard before, and that the multi-layered samples and genres create something new. And that's one of the keys to the success of Endtroducing -- it's innovative, but it builds on a solid historical foundation, giving it a rich, multi-faceted sound. It's not only a major breakthrough for hip-hop and electronica, but for pop music. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

Though the sleeve notes of DJ Shadow's exhilarating long-playing debut speak of his devotion to "vinyl culture" and "sample-based music" (a guide of which is contained within), it's all just double-speak for hip-hop. Undoubtedly, this is the musical culture that lit up the life of young Cali-boy Josh Davis, inspiring him to construct these vocal-less, found-sound collages. Not the hip-hop that a dime-a-dozen MCs have turned into a cartoonish, excess-filled formula, but the hip-hop of such sonic anarchist producers as Afrika Bambaataa and The Bomb Squad. To put it mildly, DJ Shadow sides with the dope beats, not the bland blah-blah-blah.

Shadow's skills with a drum machine power ENDTRODUCING... as much as his innovative def-ness with a sampler--which says a lot for someone who's been called the Jimi Hendrix of sampling. The songs shift tempos in a blink, incorporating multiple time-signatures, and it's to Shadow's credit that he's as comfortable hinting at Elvin Jones' or Dave Grohl's rhythmic attacks as he is citing old faithfuls like Clyde Stubblefield. His wide array of samples color the album's beat-heavy text. Ethereal horns, ambient keyboards, orchestral strings, vocoder vocals, whole film scenes--each is made a part of the sweeping focus, part of a grand postmodern design. minimize