wed 04/12/2024

CD: DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall | reviews, news & interviews

CD: DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall

CD: DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall

Game-changing US producer embraces the new with mixed results

Shadow gets the point

DJ Shadow, AKA Californian producer Josh Davis, is a renowned figure in the world of electronic music. His profile was especially high during the millennial period, primarily down to his groundbreaking 1996 debut album, Endtroducing…, which was built entirely from samples. It was a listening experience based around hip hop principles yet accessible to aficionados of post-rave electronica, and influenced multiple producers, leaving Shadow a figure of unassailable esteem.

In more recent times, Shadow himself has clearly felt that, after a 20-year career in the wake of his landmark work, he’d do well to heed key 21st Century players in instrumental hip hop. Claiming his last album, 2011’s The Less You Know, The Better was a farewell to his sample-headed following, he put in a statement appearance at LA alt-hop mecca Low End Theory, regular haunt of vanguard producers such as Nosaj Thing, Nobody and Daedelus, and started his freaky electronica label Liquid Amber. His new album, then, embraces production software rather than samples, and is clearly made by someone who appreciates the seminal sounds he's been exploring, the likes of Flying Lotus and his ilk (in fact, the enjoyably manic, gabber-tastic crunch of “California” even sounds like the Flying Lotus associate The Gaslamp Killer in full deranged flow).

Individual tracks on The Mountain Will Fall are of interest: the rock’n’roll twang of “Nobody Speak”, featuring Run The Jewels spitting out lines such as “I am guilty, Motherfuckers, I am death!”; the burbling, spaced mournfulness of the outro, “Suicide Pact”, redolent of a Gonjasufi instrumental; most especially the arrhythmic, surrealist party that is “Mambo”. There’s more fun to be had too but, as a whole, the album doesn’t quite gel. The listener finds themself mentally wandering during certain passages, then being jarred by what comes next. There’s good music here, but it's more like a collection of rarities, b-sides and unreleased experiments than a holistic experience.

Add comment

The future of Arts Journalism

 

You can stop theartsdesk.com closing!

We urgently need financing to survive. Our fundraising drive has thus far raised £33,000 but we need to reach £100,000 or we will be forced to close. Please contribute here: https://gofund.me/c3f6033d

And if you can forward this information to anyone who might assist, we’d be grateful.

Subscribe to theartsdesk.com

Thank you for continuing to read our work on theartsdesk.com. For unlimited access to every article in its entirety, including our archive of more than 15,000 pieces, we're asking for £5 per month or £40 per year. We feel it's a very good deal, and hope you do too.

To take a subscription now simply click here.

And if you're looking for that extra gift for a friend or family member, why not treat them to a theartsdesk.com gift subscription?

newsletter

Get a weekly digest of our critical highlights in your inbox each Thursday!

Simply enter your email address in the box below

View previous newsletters