Customer Reviews
INtroducing Entroducing... - By: jozef, 07 Oct 2005 
A melodic masterpiece, an emotional rollercoaster ride that allows all moods to be catered for. Tracks like 'organ donor' & 'midnightin a perfect world' grab the first time listener. Only after this early stage do the darker, more emotive songs develop for the purchaser, & the true colours of this record are truly portrayed. DJ Shadow can only be envied by DJ's & adored by fans.
A definate neccesite as far as out-there records go.
Deluxe reissue of 1990s classic... - By: Jason Parkes, 14 Jun 2005 'Endtroducing' was deemed an auto-classic upon its releasein 1996, so is welcomein this new expanded deluxe-edition - where it now sounds as great as ever & comes with a bonus-disc of related works & rarities. Fans of 'Endtroducing' will no doubt buy this for the bonus-disc, including excerpts from a Steve Lamacq radio-show - perhaps there ought to be a similar deluxe reissue of 'Pre-Emptive Strike', as only much of the 'High Noon' single from 1997 isn't here?
'Endtroducing' didn't come from nowhere - Josh Davis built on the singles collected on 'Pre-Emptive Strike' & several releases compiled on 2000's 'Solesides Greatest Bumps' which included Latryx, Blackalicious, The Gift of Gab & Shadow himself on tracks like 'The Third Decade, Our Move' & 'Count & Estimate.' The cover of 'Endtroducing' encapsulates the album's approach- Shadow taking a myriad of sources-samples & fusing them with his own blend of electronica & hip-hop into something new. As a sampledelic work, it's up there with the greatest - Depeche Mode's 'Black Celebration', Public Enemy's 'It Takes a Nation of Millions...', De La Soul's 'Three Feet High & Rising' & 'My Lifein the Bush of Ghosts' by Eno/Byrne. Shadow's samples were elclectic, including snatchs of tracks like 'Rainbow Chaser' by Nirvana (the British psychedelic act), Fleetwood Mac's 'Brown Eyes' & a mass of obscure cuts that are still of debate/note by those intrigued. The documentary 'Snatch' (2001) captures this ethos well...
Shadow wanted to take hip-hop foward, while looking back to its utopian roots from the early 80s (think Bambaata's sampling of Kraftwerk on 'Planet Rock' or the film 'Wild Style'), & against the dominant mode of gangsta-rap- which ultimately won, so you end up with obvious-samples by 50 Cent, Will Smith or whoever & a diluted version of the genre (hence the track 'Why Hip-Hop Sucksin '96').
'Endtroducing', loosely a concept-album concerned with 1999/the future, is packed with classics- 'The Number Song', the electronic-jazz of 'Changeling' (the 1990s equivalent of 'On the Corner'? & not unlike Tangerine Dream!), the classical-nodding 'Organ Donor' (even betterin the 'overhaul'-version on Disc-2), the epic 'Stem/Long Stem' (up there with Orbital's 'The Box'), the euphoric 'Midnightin a Perfect World' & the the multi-part 'What Does Your Soul Look Like?' (the complete versions of which are found on 'Pre-Emptive Strike').
The dance-genre (a loose, general tag I know) is not renound for producing classic-albums - due to fashion & the fact it's often based around singles, the dance-music longplayer classic is often seen as elusive. But 'Endtroducing' is counter to that view, which I don't completely buy, & a release to rank alongside such classics as 'Blue Lines', 'Maxinquaye','Surfing on Sine Waves','Every Man & Woman is a Star','Snivilisation','Dubnobasswithmyheadman' & 'Supermodified.' 'Endtroducing' has certain preceded & influenced many acts too - Unkle, South, Rjd2, Clouddead, Cannibal Ox, The Charlatans, Radiohead, The Verve, Amon Tobin etc. It's also one of the key albums of the 1990s, a highlight alongside 'Dust','O.K. Computer','Wrecking Ball','Loveless','Laughing Stock','Zaireeka','Liquid Swords' etc. In short, a deluxe-version of an album that no one should be without...
From out of the shadow, the future...and it was astounding - By: russell clarke, 12 Jun 2005 Widely acknowledged as a genuine landmark on its original releasein 1996 DJ Shadows Endtroducing is given the trendy re-mastering treatment. If ever an album deserved it though it's this one, an album that provided a discernible link between hip hop & more tasteful & critically rarefied genres like classical & ambient.
The tracks were built utilising samples , possibly from many of the vinyl treasures stretching to some distant vanishing point on the albums cover, & takein a head bending array of music- funk, soul, ,jazz even rock - as well as the aforementioned ambient. It also takesin narrated samples from all over the place, movies, TV etc & provides some cognitive interest & strange empirical resonance.
It's a painstaking work of awesome ambition & listened to now it sounds even more groundbreaking , the loops & breaks droppedin & arranged with a sense of instinctive genius.It,s difficult to dissect & categorise & evaluate individual tracks but "What Does Your Soul Look Like" has an elegiac quality that puts itin the same bracket of some of Ennio Morricones & Michael Nymans finest work while "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt " is as beguilingly weird & wonderful as it's title suggests.
The second extra disc feature alternative mixes, half realised takes on songs that are sometimes drum loops minus overdubs & hollow demos that don't really add much to the original for the most part unless you are a real muso type desperate for a window into a musicians creative process. Some of the mixes are good though. "Stem "is intercut with the legendary De Niro/ Pacino encounter from "Heat" while versions of tracks by Peshay, Cut Chemist & Quannum are all worth investigating. There is also a twelve minute live section from a 1997 showin Oxford.
It's the main album originally released on "Mo Wax" that makes this an essential purchase. In a way it's...gasp, almost a concept album. A series of transmissions from a possible future .Now whether that future ever came to pass or indeed is still waiting to happen, well ... I dunno do I .Ones things for sure this is a record that will never date, never become so much tedious mulch .It still sounds astounding. It always will.
