The DJ eclipsed by his own Shadow

May 5, 2016 2:49 AM

DJ Shadow will release his first album in five years, "The Mountain Will Fall", on June 24. A month ago, he shared the title track on Soundcloud; it was not met with the warmest of welcomes at FACT. In an interview with Pitchfork, Shadow, however, stated that "Sometimes records are a struggle. This record I knew exactly what I wanted to get across." Now we have the opportunity to watch the fresh official video for "The Mountain Will Fall", directed by Territory Studios' Marti Romances. (via; DJ Shadow previously)
posted by sapagan (26 comments total)

What's wrong with "weird backpack Twin Peaks nonsense"?
posted by PHINC at 3:03 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

I love DJ Shadow. Just ran across the instrumental for "Nobody Speak". (And from that Pitchfork link, you can hear the new album's bonus track "Swerve". The big revel to me is that he's using Ableton Live for the album.
posted by Catblack at 3:27 AM on May 5, 2016

Never heard of FACT but I won't be relying on them for insightful reviews in the future: this is a killer single, looking forward to the album.

If you ever get a chance to see DJ Shadow in concert, take it! Amazing show (Only European tour dates right now, assuming US dates will follow in the Fall).
posted by jeremias at 3:38 AM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

Jeremias, totally agreed about the lives, saw him with Cut Chemist last year on the Renegades of Rhythm tour where they played Afrika Bambaataa's vinyls. 'twas the best history lesson I've received.
posted by sapagan at 3:48 AM on May 5, 2016

"weird backpack Twin Peaks nonsense" is a great example of how useless most music criticism is.
posted by IjonTichy at 4:03 AM on May 5, 2016 [7 favorites]

Nice interview from 2012 on performing live and producing music.
posted by sapagan at 4:28 AM on May 5, 2016

Everyone's getting hung up on "backpack twin peaks", but the full comment is actually, " “Instrumental hip-hop” has never appealed to me and this doesn’t, either. This is some kind of weird backpack Twin Peaks nonsense and I won’t have it." The commentator is not trying to disguise this as anything other than a genre preference and part of the point of FACT singles club is to get a diversity of views, after all. Hard to see how this could possibly be useless music criticism.

More to the point, some of the other comments in that review are really really spot on and well-expressed, both positive and negative IMO. " it’s a solid piece of dystopia-hop, embedded in a synthesised ‘70s aesthetic that celebrates a distant future while also bubbling with anxiety at what approaches." ... "The first minute is beautiful, triumphant ambient and then that screeching “woo!” comes in and the vibe gets squashed to the ground. " ... "There’s a decent composition here but its obscured by that dated broken beat."
posted by advil at 6:25 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Welp, if you don't like Instrumental hip-hop you probably won't like DJ Shadow, that's true.
posted by Artw at 6:42 AM on May 5, 2016 [5 favorites]

The thing is, had someone played this for me without telling me it was DJ Shadow, I'd not have guessed it was him or instrumental hip-hop but rather some kind of genetic EDM.
posted by Candleman at 6:51 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

They were never all that different a thing, TBH.

But yeah, on first listen nothing here is really grabbing me.
posted by Artw at 6:57 AM on May 5, 2016

I haven't really connected with much of Shadow's stuff since Endtroducing, and this one is not really an exception in that regard. But I have liked a bunch of his collaborative stuff with rappers. The RTJ one sounded good enough to me even if I tend to prefer El-P's production these days
posted by Hoopo at 6:57 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Meh, sounds like a 2\3 finished Daft Punk track
posted by Dmenet at 7:32 AM on May 5, 2016

Shadow, unfortunately, has gone from being a pioneer in the 90s to someone who tries to keep up with the latest trends, and he's constantly late to the party. Sorry for the parallel but he's been kind of a Bond movie lately. I mentioned above that the Renegades tour was my best history lesson, and it was absolutely the waters in which he felt incredibly comfortable. But he's determined not to become a history lesson himself and it seems that right now he's trying very hard to become a contemporary musician which results in him being more "imitative than innovative".
posted by sapagan at 7:33 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

Meh, sounds like a 2\3 finished Daft Punk track

Specifically it sounds like the bits of a Daft Punk track that would build up to something, but instead of a something it just ends.

Maybe the next track is really impressive?
posted by Artw at 8:27 AM on May 5, 2016

Hey I like this track! It sounds very little like previous DJ Shadow to me but I respect his shifting around to different genres. I confess I really only love his first studio album, Endtroducing. But the South Beach set that was "too future" (from 2012) is still on regular rotation for me.
posted by Nelson at 8:35 AM on May 5, 2016

I liked this one too. It's the inclusion of "featuring [rapper name here]" on the rest of the album that will probably prevent me from any further interest.
posted by Foosnark at 8:37 AM on May 5, 2016

Endtroducing will get me to listen to any DJ Shadow album. The rest of his catalog will get me to wait before buying.
posted by Going To Maine at 8:41 AM on May 5, 2016 [3 favorites]

The thing is, had someone played this for me without telling me it was DJ Shadow, I'd not have guessed it was him or instrumental hip-hop but rather some kind of genetic EDM.

They were never all that different a thing, TBH.

I may be misreading you, but Shadow definitely had a very distinct and identifiable sound in the 90s that you could easily pick out of the pack. It was probably 1/3 his drum programming, 1/3 the mood of his samples, and 1/3 his song structure formula. But it was very much a signature sound you wouldn't confuse with anyone else back then.

of course maybe you mean generic EDM and instrumental hip hop weren't that different a thing in which case yeah that's mostly true. A lot of the time I could not find much of a line separating "downtempo" from instrumental hip hop, but still each label seemed to appeal to a different crowd for whatever reason, backpackers for instrumental hip hop or ravers/club kids for downtempo.
posted by Hoopo at 8:43 AM on May 5, 2016 [1 favorite]

For a while there was a real effort in certain camps to emphasize how different instrumental hip-hop and Shadow in particular were different from Trip Hop, and as with a lot of genre fights the truth is there's not much actual difference at all except for exterior values you choose to ascribe to it.

(Of course that was when trip hop was still part way fashionable, now it's the opposite and it's *all* instrumental hip-hop.)
posted by Artw at 8:58 AM on May 5, 2016 [2 favorites]

I just find it amusing to think of DJ Shadow's music as trackable. I will listen to the whole LP in order before I decide where I like it or not. And whatever my opinion is, it is just my opinion. I don't get music criticism. Seems like a scam.
posted by terrapin at 9:48 AM on May 5, 2016

This really reminds me of The Mind's Eye from the 90's, but in a good way? Anyhow I'm reserving judgement until I hear the whole album.
posted by poe at 10:44 AM on May 5, 2016

Maybe the next track is really impressive?

It's "Nobody Speak" feat. Run The Jewels (NSFW lyrics ... especially if you work with anyone who supports Trump).

A very short Making of "Nobody Speak" with DJ Shadow & Run The Jewels video.

So, the opening track is ... an opening track. It doesn't exactly build into this second track, but there's more there in the track. I definitely get the "unfinished Daft Punk track" vibe, and it's nothing exciting on its own.

But DJ Shadow as an artist/musician - his limited collection is pretty diverse. There's the essential Mo'Wax debut, Endtroducing....., which really put the hip-hop producer and turntablist in the fore-front of hip-hop. Six years later, The Private Press came out on Island and MCA, so DJ Shadow had made it "big." Bolder, more story-telling in the songs, and a lot of fun, while keeping it centered around "instrumental hip-hop," whatever that might be in 2002. Four years later, The Outsider (UK edition, one of 4 major editions - why would you exclude Skullfuckery feat. Heliocentrics from 3 of the 4 editions?), pulled in more diverse sounds, including Bay Area hyphy, indie rock, blues, spoken word, punk rock and pop rap. He (mostly) re-focused on hip-hop in 2011 with The Less You Know, the Better, but still used large samples to set the mood of songs.

I think the biggest problem is that Endtroducing was such a strong album for its time that he had trouble trying to surpass that.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:45 AM on May 5, 2016 [6 favorites]

the biggest problem is that Endtroducing was such a strong album for its time that he had trouble trying to surpass that.

Yep. I've seen him live a few times (he was great every time), and while people enjoy some of his newer stuff when they hear it, people only really get crazy for either his old stuff or for other people's music he'll play or remix.
posted by cell divide at 11:12 AM on May 5, 2016

Meh, sounds like a 2\3 finished Daft Punk track

So, a Daft Punk track then?
posted by bongo_x at 12:26 PM on May 5, 2016

aww Nelson beat me to "too future"
posted by juv3nal at 1:36 PM on May 5, 2016

I actually get why people would criticize this. A few of my friends are SUPER into to bleeding edge beat music and underground stuff in that genre.

This isn't ~super current~, and it also isn't some shameless 90s throwback to endtroducing which is also a genre of track that's been burbling in the background lately.

It sounds like shadow, but it doesn't push the limits like early shadow did for that time.

The people who have diaper rash about this seem to be predominantly coming from the same place as people who hated the last Daft Punk album for similar reasons.

Pretty much, it's good music, but it's not super innovative good music or exactly what their favorite album by that band sounded like. The problem is that when an artist delivers the latter, it sounds like reheated leftovers. When they deliver the former, it's usually either nothing of note or out there but brand new material by a new artist. Established artists tend to get further in to their own sound and themes.

So it seems it can be good music, and a good shadow track and still piss some people off. And eh, fuck em. I'm excited for it.
posted by emptythought at 2:44 PM on May 5, 2016