You gotta love DJ Shadow: still out here doing whatever the fuck he wants, making whatever kind of music he wants to make. But don’t forget that not long before he turned your world upside down with 1996’s Endtroducing, Shadow was just like the rest of us, playing records on his college radio station, scratching a little, trying to make simple beats for MCs to rap over, until his proggy ambitions got the best of him and he dropped the needle on Jeremy Storch’s “I Feel A New Shadow.” For the past decade or so, Shadow has gotten back to his roots, linking with E-40, Run The Jewels, David Banner, Talib Kweli, Posdnuos & more along the way. On his latest outing for Mass Appeal, Shadow collects outtakes from his 2016 The Mountain Will Fall album sessions, including collabs with Mass Appeal boss Nas and new school Warp MC Danny Brown. Fans who hated Shadow’s hyphy experiments on The Outsider should be pleased. In fact, the sparse beat and Nas’ lo-fi cadence on “Systematic” isn’t too far off from “Drums Of Death Pt. 1,” Shadow’s collab with Kool G Rap on UNKLE’s debut album Psyence Fiction. The flip contains some nice mangled breakbeat gymnastics (“Good News”) and a deeply cinematic slice of beats and soundscapes (“Corridors”) written in collaboration with Gravity composer Steven Price that should tickle the part of your brain that still loves Preemptive Strike. Includes printed insert and code for free digital download.

• digital download included
• music label: Mass Appeal 2017

reviewed by mayor of hounslow 08/2017