Endtroducing... [Deluxe Edition]

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Editorial reviews

Amazon.co.uk Review
This Deluxe Edition includes a bonus CD of demos, alternate versions and remixes. 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 fail to go unnoticed, even by the casual listener. While most of the tracks are compiled by layering samples from vinyl treasures found in used-record bins, the production quality of the mosaic is unmatched. Darkened melodies carry throughout the album with its eye on the end of the tunnel. The narration samples come from numerous sources and keep the listener involved and waiting for resolution. With a message as fragmentary as an overheard conversation, Endtroducing... conveys no apparent conclusion, but begs the mind, body, and soul for some rewind. --Lucas Hilbert

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Customer reviews

review by: jozef date: 2005-10-07 rating:
INtroducing Entroducing...
A melodic masterpiece, an emotional rollercoaster ride that allows all moods to be catered for. Tracks like 'organ donor' and 'midnight in a perfect world' grab the first time listener. Only after this early stage do the darker, more emotive songs develop for the purchaser, and the true colours of this record are truly portrayed. DJ Shadow can only be envied by DJ's and adored by fans.
A definate neccesite as far as out-there records go.

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review by: We're all Frankies' date: 2005-06-14 rating:
Deluxe reissue of 1990s classic...
'Endtroducing' was deemed an auto-classic upon its release in 1996, so is welcome in 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 and fusing them with his own blend of electronica and 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 Life in 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'), and against the dominant mode of gangsta-rap- which ultimately won, so you end up with obvious-samples by 50 Cent, Will Smith or whoever and a diluted version of the genre (hence the track 'Why Hip-Hop Sucks in '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 better in the 'overhaul'-version on Disc-2), the epic 'Stem/Long Stem' (up there with Orbital's 'The Box'), the euphoric 'Midnight in 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 and 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, and 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 and 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...


review by: stipesdoppleganger date: 2005-06-12 rating:
From out of the shadow, the future...and it was astounding
Widely acknowledged as a genuine landmark on its original release in 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 and more tasteful and critically rarefied genres like classical and ambient.
The tracks were built utilising samples , possibly from many of the vinyl treasures stretching to some distant vanishing point on the albums cover, and take in a head bending array of music- funk, soul, ,jazz even rock - as well as the aforementioned ambient. It also takes in narrated samples from all over the place, movies, TV etc and provides some cognitive interest and strange empirical resonance.
It's a painstaking work of awesome ambition and listened to now it sounds even more groundbreaking , the loops and breaks dropped in and arranged with a sense of instinctive genius.It,s difficult to dissect and categorise and evaluate individual tracks but "What Does Your Soul Look Like" has an elegiac quality that puts it in the same bracket of some of Ennio Morricones and Michael Nymans finest work while "Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt " is as beguilingly weird and 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 and 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 and Quannum are all worth investigating. There is also a twelve minute live section from a 1997 show in 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.

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