Review: DJ Shadow, Endtroducing…

DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing… so constantly changes pace that definitions are rendered insufficient.

DJ Shadow, Endtroducing...Trip-hop, Europe’s alternative of choice in the second half of the 1990s, can, perhaps, be defined as the merging of hip-hop and electronica until neither genre is recognizable. DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing…, however, so constantly changes pace that such a definition is rendered insufficient.

Tracks like “Changeling” prove that sampling can be art, not just commerce—a murky line that America’s mainstream hip-hop acts continue to walk. DJ Shadow, born Joshua Paul Davis, is indeed an accomplished changeling, shifting from jazz aficionado to film composer to magnum turntablist in a matter of moments throughout the album.

“Building Steam with a Grain of Salt” is constructed with a collage of stuttering beats, organ riffs, and bits of sampled narration while “What Does Your Soul Look Like” and “Midnight in a Perfect World” blend smooth, loungy jazz into seemingly fluid original pieces. Similarly, the cinematic “Stem/Long Stem” builds several classically arranged movements around a sample of Nirvana’s “Love Suite,” creating an ominous and multi-textured masterpiece of hip-hop postmodernism.

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According to the album’s liner notes, Endtroducing… “reflects a lifetime of vinyl culture.” Tracks like “Mutual Slump,” which features a sample of Björk’s “Possibly Maybe” and a young girl’s naïve confession—“Came to America, saw Xanadu, that’s all I wanted to, rollerskate”—insist it reflects a whole lot more.

Score: 
 Label: Mo Wax  Release Date: September 16, 1996  Buy: Amazon

Sal Cinquemani

Sal Cinquemani is the co-founder and co-editor of Slant Magazine. His writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Village Voice, and others. He is also an award-winning screenwriter/director and festival programmer.

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