This is an album I never would have found on my own. Had my brother-in-law not let me borrow it, I wouldn't have even known it existed.
First side is a mix of old school hip hop, and it's good and fun to pick out some original samples.
The B-side is 5 tracks of 60's(?) psychedelic rock. DJ Shadow only seems to do a little mixing: there is some scratching in just the right places, and possibly some overlaid vocal tracks. This side took me a while to get into, but now I'll listen to it more than the hip hop side.
Here's the first track: Boomp3.com
6 comments:
I love this CD. Shadow is one of my all time faves, and this 2nd disc of Diminishing Returns stands out as one of my fave things he's done. Shadow does minimal anything over just blendiung tracks, but when he does it is spot on. Good looking, Steve.
Also, if you are lucky wnough to have original packaging (Matt Varnish has one of these) it is bundled up like a carnival fun pack with stickers and shit? Or something? Some deluxe packaging. Maybe Matt or TJ River can elaborate.
Also good to check out is Funky Skunk mix he did as a collab with Obey/Shepard Fairey. It's more of teh dirty south/crunk rap shit, but mixed with old school hip hop and funk 45s, etc... it's bananas.
dc
I opened my package, used the coasters, stuck the stickers, thrashed the discs...
It still sounds damn good, though. Great collection.
(But, god, I wish I had two.)
Anyway, our dear friend Keith Tamashiro designed it with his deft, genius hand. In a play on the changing music industry (thus "Diminishing Returns"), he packed the goods in a consumer-friendly pack – cellophane bag, fold-over, hole-punched sales card – ready to be hung next to the gummy worms and dart guns. The card design was indeed carnival-inspired... and letterpressed! The disc designs featured op-art for those fortunate ones with see-through players. The coasters featured art by Phil Frost (who also did the art for Shadow's Preemptive Strike). I think the stickers featured art from the guy who did the "Mashin' on the Motorway" video.
Good stuff.
Well said. Matt Taylor also has that super duper duper rare Monosyllabik 12" promo. I had to get mine off of eBay.
Matty where are you? I know you're lurking...
I think he was actually part of the recruits that hand-stickered and assembled those monosyllabik promos... and taking one was the payment. (I don't know where I was that day.)
Although not AS rare, I do have the Cheney-devil die-cut picture-vinyl. (DJ Shadow asks: Would you go hunting with this man?) I've yet to put a needle to it, though. And only upon just googling it did I find out that it has a remix of Radiohead's "The Gloaming" on it.
(Runs to turntable...)
http://www.recidivism.org/images/cheney.jpg
I've been pissed at DJ Shadow for a while now ever since I went to see "his" show a few years ago. It was totally mis-advertised as a DJ Shadow performance when it was really just a bunch of rappers yelling into a microphone for about an hour an a half. He wasn't even the backing DJ for the rappers.
He did come out for about 10 minutes towards the end and did some wack-ass scratching and mixing. Totally disappointing and a waste of money. I haven't purchased anything from him since.
The Anchor sent me a copy of Diminishing Returns many moons ago. I just filed it away and never listened to it...until earlier this week.
On my initial listening I really liked the rap mix but the psych mix was a bit droning and didn't really move me. I'll certainly be giving it another listen though so it might grow on me.
Endtroducing may be a classic but he really lost me as a fan due to that show.
hahaha, old school heads know me as "the anchor". it's a long story.
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