DJ Shadow, a.k.a. Josh Davis, could be credited with bringing newfound introspection to the gloating sounds of hip-hop. Condensed with urban oscillations and scatological beats, Endtroducing... shutters with eclectic samples and aural montages that reach beyond the constraints of hip-hop style. Enhancing the mix with fundamentals of rock, soul, funk, ambient, and jazz, the modern fusions ...
Manufacturer: Universal / Island
California's Josh Davis--aka DJ Shadow would have no easy ride in making The Private Press after his debut Endtroducing wreaked havoc in the dance and hip-hop communities. Constructed entirely around samples, yet defiantly and thrillingly original, it took searching for dusty breaks in old thrift stores to new levels. With its serious b-boy underpinnings and potently stark soundtrack ...
A collection of B Sides (Sorry, G Sides) from a band with only one album to their credit should be an exercise in lowest-common-denominator barrel-scraping. But Gorillaz' G Sides, as befits a band whose "live" performances take months of preparation, is an exercise in careful planning that actually manages to outstrip this near certainty. It's by no means a work of lost gems. "19-2000" ...
Manufacturer: Parlophone
So, the Gorillaz have hired some space monkeyz to remix their album? Right... The official story behind Laika Come Home is that it's the product of an intergalactic odyssey apparently undertook by D-Zire, Dubversive and Gavva, all descendents of the first chimps sent into space. And what does a lonely simian listen to in the dark coldness of space? Why bone-shaking dubscapes with enough ...
Something must have flipped Kool Keith's wig like a mescaline pizza. I can think of no other way to explain the mutant birth of Dr. Octagonecologyst. Literally assuming another personality on this record, Dr. Octagon--Kool Keith on the mike, with Dan "The Automater" Nakamura producing--transmits unearthly rhymes like tractor beams to your cranium. Then he squirms around in there, grabs some ...
Manufacturer: Dreamworks
Herbaliser masterminds Jake Wheery and Ollie Teeba consider Something Wicked This Way Comes to be the highlight of their career, and with good reason. The duo has been crafting a blend of jazz laced hip-hop and club grooves since they formed the ever changing and expanding Herbaliser collective in 1995. Now on their fourth album they've combined their formidable studio know-how with the ...
Manufacturer: Ninja Tune
Cannibal Ox's Vast Aire Kramer and Vordul Megala Shamar have struck a cold vein in hip-hop and come up with digital gold. Digging for dignity in an iron galaxy, to raise human tragedy beyond the small black print of the crime pages, these rap Vikings write rhymes in the blood of the slain, spit-sacred thought in the service of salvation. With production by Company Flow's El-P (who also appears on ...
Manufacturer: Def Jux
Supermodified is the stunning fourth album from Amon Tobin. Hard-edged tracks like "Four Ton Mantis" and "Saboteur" are juxtaposed against melodic downbeat excursions like "Slowly", "Marine Machines" and "Natureland". "Deo" fuses a Brazilian guitar sample with razor sharp break-beats that sound like Egberto Gismonti jamming with Squarepusher. "Precursor" (a collaboration with Montreal ...
This Limited Edition CD + DVD version comes in gatefold packaging that displays any one of four images depending on how it is folded shut. Drop an anvil at the recording of Demon Days, the celeb-packed second album from Gorillaz - the Technicolor front for Blur's Damon Albarn, producer Dan the Automator, artist Jamie Hewlett, and rapper Del Tha Funky Homosapien - and you'd probably ...
