Anti-Climacus

Bronx Banter had an excellent post earlier this week linking to a documentary snippet of DJ Shadow. For those who don't know, DJ Shadow was one of the leading figures in the late-90s boom in techno music (remember when Rolling Stone tried to get everyone to call it 'electronica'? Me neither). Shadow insisted, and with merit, that he was more of a hip-hop collage artist than a techno guy. Whatever you want to call it, he was excellent, nowhere more so than on his first album, Endtroducing.... Don't let the stupid title throw you: it's funny* and interesting and well-paced from beginning to end**, the last of which, at least, is never true of hip-hop albums.

Endtroducing... also belongs in that special category of 'late night album.' Like Air's Moon Safari or Portishead's Dummy, it serves all requisite dead-of-evening purposes: driving around a city, sitting in a parking garage, being chased by spies/aliens, soundtracking a disjointed but serious conversation,*** providing an extra bit of energy when it's 2:00am and you're still drafting a conference paper.


*See "Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '96," which lets a west coast-style beat roll for about thirty seconds before having a voice come in singing "...it's the money..."

**The last sample on the album was surprising and entirely unexpected, which has happened exactly once before in my music-listening life.

***If you'd like it to be epic rather than serious, or want it to be the most tragic conversation ever, this is the song. I might write about it later.