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DJ Shadow Returns With The Private Press

Six years after the release of his debut album, the groundbreaking, samples-based masterwork Endtroducing..., DJ Shadow is finally back with a new studio album: The Private Press, to be released by MCA on June 4. "More than anything I just wanted it to be an entertaining record," said Shadow (real name Josh Davis) in a press release. The album is a triumphant return, filled with his signature blend of old-school hip-hop, techno breakbeats, funk, soul and rock. Critic Greil Marcus describes The Private Press as "instantly, inherently cinematic... a soundtrack that doesn't need a movie."

As a hip-hop obsessed teenager growing up in the San Francisco Bay area, Shadow made a name for himself in the early '90s with the release of the prodigious, progressive singles "Entropy," "In/flux" and "What Does Your Soul Look Like." His distinctive sound caught the attention of London's Mo' Wax label and he was quickly embraced by the British press.

"I take a very strictly-delineated traditional hip-hop approach, which is from vinyl," Shadow said during a 1996 interview with Addicted to Noise. "The way I look at it is, if you can't find it on a record, keep looking. Because it's out there somewhere. It may sound closed-minded or inhibiting, but in the sampling world, I think it's cheating when you throw live stuff over samples...."

After Entroducing... was released to international critical acclaim in 1996, Shadow worked on a number of projects that included U.N.K.L.E.'s Psyence Fiction with Mo 'Wax label-head James Lavell in 1998, the Product Placement collaborations (which involved limited releases of his live recordings with Cut Chemist), and the scoring of the critically acclaimed film "Dark Days."

He once said that he chose the name "Shadow" because "I wanted a name that signifies that it doesn't matter who's doing it [making the music]. The people I always liked were the people behind the scenes, behind the sound — the producers. And you don't know what they look like. It's like with movies: I don't identify with the star so much as I identify with the director. Because it's their vision."

Work on The Private Press began about a year and a half ago in London and in Shadow's home studio in Davis, Calif. The album's title is a record collector's term for the "vanity" music publishers artists pay to press up their recordings. "As I was working on the record," the 29-year-old artist said. "I found myself gravitating towards many different styles of music and records as inspiration, and what they all had in common was the 'home-made' factor."

While the distinct, sharp drum sounds and haunting piano loops from previous recordings are still present, the way Shadow made use of the many different samples that went into The Private Press gives the record a distinct sound.

"Monosylabik" is a six-minute-plus standout constructed from a single two-bar loop. "Blood on the Motorway" sounds like a break-beat mutation of Moby's "Play," with soulful vocals and syncopated drumming. Davis works his hip-hop jones on "Walkie Talkie," which features lightning-fast scratching along with the sampled lines "I'm a bad motherfuckin' DJ/ That's why I walk and talk this way."

In the '80s flashback "You Can't Go Home Again," Shadow places synthesizer samples and even a few bars of Van Halen-esque guitar over a driving new-wave bass line. And "Right Thing/GDMFSOB" is a shape-shifting track that sounds like Kraftwerk one moment and the Chemical Brothers the next. Aside from an appearance from the West Coast rapper Lateef on "Mashin' on the Motorway," the album is almost entirely comprised of samples.

The Private Press also includes "Letter From Home," "Fixed Income," "Un Autre Introduction," "Giving up the Ghost," "Six Days," "Mongrel..." and "...Meets His Maker."

Shadow says his goal is "to incorporate elements of all sorts into something hopefully new and innovative...to make every release different from the last." — Ryan M. Dombal [Wednesday, May 29, 2002] --


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