DJ Shadow Outsider CD

Longtime DJ Shadow fans tend to display a rabid devotion to his often arcane, decidedly DIY production methods. Now the stuff of legend, Shadow's debut, ENTRODUCING, was famously constructed from nothing more than a sampling drum machine and musical snippets sourced from obscure thrift-store vinyl. His third album, THE OUTSIDER, marks defiantly new territory for this veteran artist. Increasingly less reliant on his trademark sampling techniques, Shadow has stretched out to genres as diverse as Bay Area hyphy, hardcore rock, and left-field dance music. Displaying an impetuous and often restless experimental streak, THE OUTSIDER features a revolving cast of vocalists, rappers, and musicians. Sure to confound musical pundits and genre purists alike, DJ Shadow has created inspired music that is bound to attract a coterie of new fans.
The Outsider is either a concept record about musical schizophrenia or a warehouse for 18 of the most idiosyncratic productions of DJ Shadow's career. And, to complicate matters, many of them are excellent. Although it trails his second production LP by only four years, The Outsider sounds like it includes the detritus of a decade's worth of false starts: celebrity production jobs (one track was originally intended for Zack de la Rocha), anonymously released comeback singles (the regional radio hit "3 Freaks"), collaborations with art rock figures (Kasabian, Chris James from a band called Stateless, Christina Carter from Charalambides), and a cavalcade of talented guest vocalists and rappers who predictably underperform (or get overwhelmed by their productions). The best thing about The Outsider is that it rarely attempts to be Endtroducing, Pt. 2. In fact, mainstream rap commands the first third of the record. Setting aside his sampler for a few tracks, Shadow proves that Lil Jon has nothing on him. (Certainly, if Shadow ever made a concerted effort at commercial rap production, Scott Storch would soon be back making sandwiches in Philly.) For "3 Freaks," he pushes a couple of San Francisco's finest hyphy hip-hop stars, Keak da Sneak and Turf Talk, for a digital track that's as experimental as should be expected from Shadow, but just commercial enough to light up urban radio. (Granted, rap radio can be a surprisingly experimental place.) The paranoid synth of "Turf Dancing" finds Shadow cruising out to Vallejo, David Banner stops by for "Seein Thangs," and the Sick Wid It fiend Nump spins a tale of gritty paranoia on "Keep Em Close." From there, the roller coaster begins banking sharply; Shadow follows up a New Orleans guitar elegy worthy of Hendrix himself with a madcap punk-into-R&B instrumental. His tribute to John Cage precedes the Kasabian feature, and vocalist Chris James is drafted to impersonate Bono on "Erase You" (where he continually intones an interesting phrase, "under the blood red sky") and, two tracks later, Chris Martin on "You Made It." Aside from the artist himself, the only other thing that unifies this record is a crack band called the Heliocentrics, which proves its chops throughout the LP -- but nowhere better than on the first song, a dead ringer for Marvin Gaye's "Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)" with vocals from a singer that not even DJ Shadow could identify (probably picked up during one of his record-shop binges). The Outsider is a carefully crafted, artistically elusive mess -- far more scattershot than even his first UNKLE record (Psyence Fiction), but much more interesting for its excellent productions. ~ John BushRolling Stone (p.94) - 3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[The album] finds the Bay-area producer pushing bass mechanics to the fore and drawing from the energy of hyphy, this year's crucial hip-hop movement."
Spin (p.100) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "The album's prog rock, soul jazz, and arty Britpop find Shadow in a fruitful territory."
Entertainment Weekly (p.94) - "[A] batch of party-rap vocal tracks drenched in hyphy -- California's bodacious big-beat answer to Southern crunk."
Q (p.106) - 3 stars out of 5 -- "As ever, THE OUTSIDER's production is immaculate....Having flirted with the mainstream, DJ Shadow seems happy to retreat back to the margins."
Uncut (p.104) - 4 stars out of 5 -- "THE OUTSIDER sees him making something of a departure, emerging from turntablism's dusty basement and taking inspiration from the streets of his Bay Area home."
The Wire (p.63) - "As always, his production, from the burbling synth washes of '3 Freaks' to the multilayered drum patterns on 'Erase You', is unmatched....THE OUTSIDER sounds fresh and risky."