DJ SHADOW The Private Press (Mo’ Wax) Rating: NNNN Rating: NNNN
Give DJ Shadow credit for moving beyond the standard cut-and-paste operation on The Private Press (out Tuesday). Having pushed hiphop-inspired sample production to the fringe on Endtroducing and having unravelled the mystery slightly with his break-heavy Brainfreeze and Product Placement sessions, Shadow shows here that he’s still got plenty in the crates. The Private Press lists precisely seven samples despite being built entirely out of other people’s music, and beyond Monosylabik — a six-minute track built out of one sample — the record sounds like more than simply the sum of its parts. Clanging hiphop cuts will get heads bobbing, but the most impressive moments are tracks like the classic rock opus Blood On The Motorway and the stunning, string-drenched pop song Six Days, on which Shadow drops the funk to create complete songs out of hundreds of fragments. Hunt as hard as you can, but there are no seams.
