Five years on from his breakout
Endtroducing..., hip-hop's reigning recluse showed he still had plenty of tricks up his sleeve -- as well as many more rare grooves left for sampling.
Shadow had kept a low recording profile during past years, putting out only a few mix sets alongside a pair of collaborations (
Psyence Fiction by
UNKLE and Quannum Spectrum). That lack of product actually helps
The Private Press display just how good a producer he is; the depth of his production sense and the breadth of his stylistic palette prove just as astonishing the second time out. His style is definitely still recognizable, right from the start; "Fixed Income" and "Giving Up the Ghost" carefully layer wistful-sounding string arrangements overtop cavernous
David Axelrod breaks (the latter a bit reminiscent of "Midnight in a Perfect World" from
Endtroducing...). From there, though,
DJ Shadow seldom treads the same path twice, switching from strutting disco breaks ("Walkie Talkie") to melancholy '60s pop that sounds like the second coming of
Procol Harum ("Six Days"). "Right Thing/GDMFSOB" is pure breakers revenge, boasting accelerating, echoey electro breakbeats and enough confidence to recycle
Leonard Nimoy's "pure energy" sample and make it work. Later,
Shadow turns to pure aggro for the hilarious road-rage comedy of "Mashin' on the Motorway" (with
Lateef the Truth Speaker behind the wheel), then summons the conceptual calm of a
David Axelrod classic on the very next track with solo piano and a vocal repeating Bible text. Fans may have grown impatient waiting almost six years for the second
DJ Shadow LP, but a classic like
The Private Press could last at least that long, and maybe longer. [Initially, most copies of
The Private Press on sale in America included a track available for download as a bonus.] ~ John Bush