Ten more things I did instead of watching X-Factor

1. Watched a bit of ‘Farewell to the Planet of the Apes’ on the Horror Channel – specifically a bit where two apes were literally flirting with each other. Having checked that I hadn’t accidentally stumbled on to the more ‘specialist’ channels further down the list, my discomfort was further compounded by the fact they sounded like they were voiced by Carry On actors. I was half expecting a Sid James ape to stroll in at any moment, emitting a filthy chuckle from his grinning simian lips. Still, it can’t be anywhere near as uncomfortable as watching Grimmy acting like a sixth form tutor who thinks he’s still down with the kids.

2. Had a wee. I got up to go the bathroom, obviously – I haven’t yet reached the stage where I keep a bucket by the sofa, although I may one day look into setting up something involving a series of pulleys if the need arises.

3. Microwaved a chicken biryani.

4. Ate the microwaved chicken biryani. It wasn’t bad, although I did burn the roof of my mouth in my eagerness to consume said ready meal.

5. Scratched my arse.

6. Ironed four new work shirts.

7. Wondered why shirts always come with so many bits of plastic and cardboard (and tissue paper?!) stuck to them, ready to fly off in a multitude of directions as you try to unfold your newly purchased garment. I probably spent just as long picking up plastic clips from the floor as I did actually ironing the shirts they were attached to.

8. Flicked through the channels and accidentally (ACCIDENTALLY!) caught a few seconds of X-Factor in which Simon Cowell looked like he’d been living in his car for the past few weeks. I wonder if he watches the show back each week just so he can freeze-frame the exact moment a contestant realises their dreams have been smashed to smithereens?

9. Wondered whether there had ever been a Smiths tribute band called The Smithereens. And if not, could someone make it happen?

10. Wondered if I could come up with a solution to the world’s problems during my spare evenings. I’m not promising anything, but I’ll give it some thought, okay?

I regret nothing. NOTHING.

Let's push things forward

Hip Hop Hump Days #9:

Various Artists – Rough Trade Shops Hip Hop 2015: Beats, Bass + Rhymes

Listen. Can you hear it? Something’s happening.

Hip hop is a strange beast. At its very worst, it is little more than diluted factory line chart fodder designed to secure airplay and make the bloated even fatter – think Nicki Minaj doing Crazy Frog impressions backed by nauseatingly overproduced landfill EDM or Pitbull’s bewildering lack of anything remotely resembling talent.

At its best, however, hip hop has the power to be one of the most creatively rich and diverse forms of artistic expression, constantly finding bold and inventive new ways to surprise and enlighten.

Right now, hip hop seems to be bursting at the seams with artists striving to be different, rather than simply trying to fit in with any sort of preconceived notion of what the genre should be about. It’s hip hop, Slim, but not as we knew it.

It seems the good people at the Rough Trade shops, themselves standard-bearers for exquisite musical taste, have also noticed this, prompting them to put together a compilation of 35 tracks from some of contemporary US and UK hip hop’s more forward-thinking exponents.

The resulting double CD is an exhilarating snapshot of a multi-faceted musical movement which still refuses to be confined by so-called boundaries, acknowledging its roots but still managing to sound vibrant, fresh and, above all, like the work of artists brimming with actual ideas.

This is hip hop as it was always intended to be: groundbreaking, inventive, creative, original… and, crucially, free from interference from major label executives looking for a generic, polished product to spoonfeed commercial radio listeners between adverts for household insurance and local carpet warehouses. No one gives a shit what Nick Grimshaw thinks or whether they’ll appear on the next Now compilation.

For me, what’s interesting here is how comfortably tracks from opposite sides of the pond sit alongside each other. From the US, we have Earl Sweatshirt’s piano-led ‘Chum’ which suddenly breaks into sci-fi prog rock, Sub Pop signings (and can you imagine Sub Pop putting out hip hop albums even a decade ago?) THEESatisfaction and Shabazz Palaces and their own unique (and sometimes psychedelic) take on the genre, and the consistent brilliance of Run The Jewels. Longer-established artists such as Ghostface Killah and Pharoahe Monch also get a look-in, proving that keeping things fresh isn’t solely the preserve of the new skool. Also worthy of a mention are the free-jazz stylings of Hail Mary Mallon, Sonnymoon and Your Old Droog.

The UK is superbly represented. Young Fathers are as good as ever, steadfastly forging their own distinct musical path, while Foreign Beggars kick off 'Sirens' with droplets of eerie digital pizzicato before erupting (if that's the right word) into bass-heavy minimalism and super-sharp lyrical delivery. Ocean Wisdom’s collaboration with kidkanevil layers dark, grimy basslines over organic-sounding drum and bass reminiscent of Breakbeat Era, while Novelist and Mumdance’s mighty ‘Shook’ impresses with snatches of euphoric synth piercing through stabs of deep, vibrating, buzzing feedback, like shards of sunlight penetrating storm clouds. A mention too for Jehst and Strange U's brilliantly unsettling 'Dolph Lundgren'. And you will not find a more deliciously British take on hip hop than West Country MC Spye’s closer ‘Oops Sorry’ – trust me.

Thirty-five tracks. All individual in their own way and yet at the same time sharing a common characteristic in that they are all pushing boundaries and daring to do something different without pandering to the mainstream. This is what hip hop was about when the likes of Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash were cutting up old funk and soul records to create something completely new: pay your dues to those who came before you, but take those influences and keep on moving forward.

And on the strength of this album, hip hop has never been in finer creative health.  

Listen. It’s happening right now. Be a part of it.

Written off?

If the uneasy relationship between the internet and the music industry has taught us anything, it’s that too many people today believe they shouldn’t have to pay anything (or at least any more than they think they should) to listen to the music they love. Equally, it seems these same people believe they shouldn’t have to pay to read about the music they love either.

While pretty much every music magazine is seeing a rapid decline in sales, no one seems to be feeling the increasingly painful pinch more than NME, once that bastion of cutting edge new music eagerly awaited each week by the faithful and now little more than a flimsy, overpriced shop window for the online version (which, incidentally, attracts around seven millions users a month).

Having enjoyed six-figure circulation figures at the peak of its success, the magazine struggles to entice more than around 15,000 people a week to part with their hard-earned cash – and at £2.50 a pop for something that can be read cover to cover during an average toilet visit, who can blame them?

Something’s gotta give and that something, it seems, is the cover price. Having realised that they can’t sell it anymore, the people at NME have now decided to see if they can literally give it away. Yep, from September, NME will be free, moving from the newsstands to railway stations, shops and student unions instead – an indie Metro, if you will.

It’s hardly a surprising move, although what IS surprising is that NME has managed to cling on for dear life for so long. In its heyday, it was the first port of call for anyone eager to find out when their favourite band’s next album was coming out or whether they would be touring nearby. It was also THE place to read about exciting new bands you wouldn’t see in the mainstream press.

Today, thanks to the old information superhighway, your favourite band have just used their Facebook page and Twitter feed to link to a brief YouTube teaser for their next album. As a loyal fan, you’ve received advance notice of their tour dates via email (no more filling in and sending off those postcards inserted into the record or CD cover so that you can then receive more postcards) and you can even tweet the band directly to express your delight at the fact they’re playing at the Dogger’s Arms in Kettering or to vent your frustration because they’ve wisely given your hometown a wide berth yet again. Oh, and you’ve probably already discovered enough new music online to fill five issues of NME before its writers have even thought of an opening line for an article telling you why Rustic Scrotum or Panda Pop Holocaust are the future of all our lives.

In a digital age, no one wants to wait until next Wednesday to find out when Damon Albarn’s concept album about sandwiches is going to be released. They want it now, dammit.

But there’s another issue – granted, not one that will have had a huge impact on their already plummeting sales figures but which I believe is still an issue all the same.

It’s fair to say that the quality of the product has decreased significantly over the past decade (if not longer). Gone are the days of in-depth critical analysis of this week’s new albums – now everything feels dumbed down and diluted, like it’s been written by an excitable work experience kid (and from what I’ve heard, that’s probably not too wide of the mark). Everything is brief and to the point (whatever that may be), but without any depth, personality or genuine passion. Where’s the individual writing style? Where’s the sense of pride in your work? Nah, the industry just wants short, punchy phrases it can plaster across adverts, posters and stickers on CD covers. Don’t try to be too clever or creative – we can’t fit it on the sticker, not with that five-star rating we’ve included from The Sun and Heat! And no, you can’t give this one a bad review – we’ve already decided as a publication that we like this band because they might be the next Arctic Monkeys.

Also, considering we live in an age where the media have never had more research tools at their disposal, a little basic fact-checking wouldn’t go amiss here and there, NME. That includes your website and its relentless stream of ’25 albums you just HAVE to hear before you turn 27’-type clickbait.

As part of its ‘rebranding’ (and why is everything just a brand these days?), NME’s distribution will be increased to 300,000 copies, presumably because increased circulation means they can not only attract more advertising but also charge more for the privilege of advertising in a magazine you’re now more likely to find lying face down on a sticky train carriage floor.

Will this additional advertising revenue be invested back into the product? Will they employ quality writers who actually understand the music they are writing about, rather than simply picking up on the latest generic white male guitar four-piece because they’ve got the right hair and clothes? Will they resist the urge to create more double-page spreads out of the fact Noel Gallagher has said SOMETHING CONTROVERSIAL AGAIN? Will they stop writing articles about Muse with lazy headlines such as ‘Apocalypse Wow’? Will they just stop writing about Mumford & Sons altogether?

We can but hope – but we probably shouldn’t hold our breath.

The 90s were my 60s

“Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.” – Proust

Nostalgia is a drug and everyone’s an addict. The older you get, the stronger the cravings.

We all yearn for a youth which, when viewed through the fog of nostalgia, seems happier (and simpler) than it probably was, conveniently forgetting that those years could also be incredibly confusing and frustrating.

Every generation looks back fondly at the period in their lives which helped turn them into the person they are today – those crucial teenage years where who and what they are (and want to be) start to crystallise, shaped by personal experiences, their peers and, of course, the music they listen to. For my parents, who were born in the mid-50s, this was the late 60s/early 70s. For me, born with just over a month of the 70s left to go, it was the 90s.

We all remember listening to our parents (and even our grandparents) waxing lyrical about how things were better in their day – and we all remember thinking ‘yeah, whatever’ because, let’s face it, we knew it all, didn’t we? We’d always have our fingers not so much on the pulse, but on the jugular of popular culture. As far as we were concerned, things had never been better (even though we had no real point of historical reference to work from) and this was a good as it would ever be.

So, here we are in 2015 and it now appears to be my generation’s turn to tell an undoubtedly indifferent generation below us how great things were in the 90s, albeit the 90s as we’ve chosen to remember them. Such is the circle of life (a 90s reference for you there).

In case it’s escaped your attention, there seems to be something of a 90s revival going on at the moment. It’s by no means a full scale cultural revolution – not yet (at least not in the way it happened with the 60s, 70s and 80s), but there seems to be an increasingly favourable climate for 90s bands reforming (Ride, for example) and the last few years have seen a slew of 20th anniversary ‘deluxe’ editions of classic 90s albums hit the shelves, orchestrated by record labels who know all too well that the teenagers who bought them the first time (from Woolies and Our Price, naturally) are now earning enough to buy them again in expanded versions at grossly inflated prices.

It’s filtering through onto our TV screens too. TFI Friday, a programme which probably encapsulated the boorish Britpop lad culture of the mid to late 90s better than anything else, returned on Friday (June 12) for a one-off special, supposedly to celebrate its 20th anniversary (it’s actually 19 years, but hey…), picking up pretty much where it left off and sending the Twittersphere into a Hooch-fuelled frenzy. And last night (June 13), Channel 4 showed a programme called ‘The 90s: Ten Years That Changed The World’, covering everything from the rave scene and Madchester through to Britpop, the enforced grief arising from Princess Diana’s death and the unrelenting cult of Beckham, in all their bold, brash, lager-swilling (and spilling) glory.

Did the 90s change the world? That depends on your interpretation of changing the world.

Did the 90s change my world? Irrefutably so.

For me, the 90s were when I started to discover who I really was and where my place in the world might be (although the jury’s still out on that one). While I started getting into music in the late 80s thanks to Top of the Pops and Smash Hits, it was in the 90s that I started reading Melody Maker and NME and venturing beyond the all-too-safe confines of the Top 40, buying obscure but no less brilliant records that wouldn’t even trouble the Top 1000 – and not from Boots or WHSmith but from independent record shops such as Way Ahead in Derby, Selectadisc in Nottingham and Rockaboom in Leicester (sadly only the latter remains open today).

It was during the 90s that I went to my first gig (East 17 at Nottingham Royal Concert Hall in 1993 – yeah, I know, sorry) and my first festival (the free Heineken Festival in Wollaton Park, Nottingham, again in 1993, featuring a ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’-era Blur who were not yet big enough to headline). I also went to my first Glastonbury (1997, a spectacularly muddy year – it was 2010 before I’d return). I also bought my first set of decks and learned how to mix two records together.

Secondary school in the early 90s was where I met the people who are still my best friends today and who I have no doubt will remain my best friends for life. I can say exactly the same for the friends I met when I started university in 1998.

This was the decade of house parties (one of which I accidentally brought to an early finish by headbutting a glass lampshade while dancing to ‘Three Lions’), of venturing into pubs to see which ones would serve people who were blatantly underage, of sending the oldest looking one of the group into the off licence for beer and/or alcopops and then a few years later going in yourself and only having to be able to recite a false date of birth in order to complete the transaction. This was also the decade of girlfriends, in the days when ‘going out’ with someone meant standing next to them during break time, waiting for the bell to go so you could do that awkward, goldfish-style open mouth snogging while all your mates cheered you on.

I passed my driving test in 1997 (second time lucky, like all the best people) and being the first of my group to do so, nobly accepted the duty of designated driver for my mates on nights out to Derby in my dad’s Peugeot 309 (for which he made me charge them frankly extortionate petrol rates). I would also take them out on drives around the local villages, just for the sake of it, blasting out happy hardcore tapes at an ear-shattering volume (usually to drown out the protests of my passengers who wanted Alice In Chains or Symposium instead).

In short, this was the decade that made me who I am today. The decade where friendships were forged, tastes were acquired and refined, and dreams were formulated (regardless of whether or not they were realised, although I did achieve my goal of becoming a journalist, a job I did for most of the noughties).

My parents’ generation had the 60s. My generation had the 90s and – I accept this may be the nostalgia talking here – they were FANTASTIC.

The 90s were my 60s.

From the archives: Dancing… with tears in my eyes

Originally published on It Is Happening Again on February 27, 2014

I really shouldn’t let it bother me, I know, but I can’t stay silent any longer. I’m not a hateful person, you see, but it’s difficult to feel anything other than utter contempt when it comes to EDM.

That’s EDM as in ‘electronic dance music’, just in case anyone confuses it with non-electronic forms of dance music such as… uh… you know… polka or flamenco or something.

Ah, EDM, let me count the ways in which I despise thee.

Firstly, no one seems to be putting in the effort anymore. Producers such as David Guetta, Avicii and Hardwell (the latter officially the best DJ in the world according to DJ Magazine’s Top 100 DJs poll) are churning out the same tired sound over and over again. The last single sold well so why change a winning formula? If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But herein lies the problem. The original source material for EDM (disco, house and garage) was born from the predominantly gay clubs of 1970s New York. It created an escape; a sense of belonging in a society which didn’t yet readily accept the rights of people it deemed to be ‘different’. By contrast, it’s difficult to listen to EDM and hear anything other than someone trying to make as much money as possible. This is music stripped of all emotion, all humanity… this isn’t music being made because someone feels a compelling need to express themselves creatively, this is music being made because someone has worked out that people are stupid enough to buy the same thing over and over again. This is the point where music stops being art and becomes just another brand. All style, no substance.

This brings me to my next point: EDM DJs. We now live in a world where people will swarm in their droves to see Keith Lemon lookalike David Guetta bouncing around, pumping his fist in the air and generally ticking all the twat boxes while doing absolutely bugger all behind the decks. He may be wearing Beats By Dre headphones (which I’m convinced were designed to help us identify those who shouldn’t be allowed out unaccompanied) but what’s that? A pre-recorded set? Really? Swedish House Mafia were just the same, only it took THREE of them to slot a USB stick into a CD player and push a button while their fans paid ludicrous money for the pleasure of watching them do sweet FA.

What’s the big deal, you ask? Well, if you paid good money to see a band play live only to find they were miming to a backing track, you’d feel pretty ripped off, right? Yeah, okay, DJs are playing recorded music (and no one has ever pretended otherwise), but it’s how you play that recorded music that makes the DJ. The real skill lies not just in mixing two records (or CDs or whatever) together, it’s all about reading the crowd and connecting with them via the music you play. If you turn up with a pre-mixed CD and then do nothing for the next hour then aren’t you actually showing a complete lack of respect for your fans by effectively ignoring them? If you’re going to make money out of being a DJ then the least anyone can expect from you is that you actually BE A DJ. That means more than a beard and a low-cut T-shirt, chumps.

It gets worse. We also live in a world where the likes of Paris Hilton and Pauly D (from Jersey Shore, a so-called ‘reality’ show that I’d rather sandpaper my scrotum than watch) are headline DJs. Paris, whose greatest contribution to mankind will be the oxygen someone else is able to use once she finally shuffles off this mortal coil, knows all the tricks. She can jump around behind the decks. She can point and pump her fist. She has sparkly headphones. But she can’t mix. She has some bloke who CAN mix hiding behind the decks, bobbing up every now and then to, y’know, actually DO HER JOB FOR HER. She probably has someone to wipe her arse too.

Pauly D, who looks like he was grown in a petri-dish, has a sparkly laptop. He pumps his fist. He points. He plays ‘Levels’ by Avicii A LOT. Artistic integrity isn’t in his vocabulary, along with, I imagine, much of the rest of the English language. Depressingly, people are willing to watch him do this in public, in the way that people used to go and watch executions (which, admittedly, would be more enjoyable to listen to).

What do Pauly D or Paris actually know about the music they play and where its roots lie? Do they actively seek out new music to champion out of a relentless passion for their art? Are they pushing boundaries? Or do they (or, most likely, their management) simply understand that being even slightly famous is enough to part people with their hard-earned cash, even if you have no discernible talent to speak of?

EDM celebrates the fact that you no longer need to make the effort as long as you have a brand that suckers will buy into. It’s like that person who turns up to the party empty-handed and demands to know where all the alcohol is. That irritating work colleague who offers to help with a project then wants to take all the credit for your success.

EDM asks the question ‘will this do?’

No. No, it won’t do at all.

Anarchy in the discotheque

Sound Advice #1: 

LCD Soundsystem – Sound of Silver (2007)

There’s a particularly poignant moment in ‘Shut Up and Play the Hits’, the film documenting the build-up to and aftermath of LCD Soundsystem’s final live show in 2011, where James Murphy is shown alone in what appears to be a vast storage space filled with studio equipment and vintage instruments. A series of still photographs flashes across the screen, depicting crowds at concerts and, perhaps most importantly, Murphy and his bandmates captured in candid moments – at parties, backstage, relaxing. It’s almost as if Murphy’s life (well, as LCD Soundsystem frontman, anyway) is flashing before our very eyes.

The camera pans back to Murphy standing at the far side of the room. We can’t see exactly what he’s looking at, but he suddenly bursts into tears – the sort of crying that men do that sounds like stifled laughter, but the hand over the face is a dead giveaway, as is the heavy breathing. It’s a deeply personal moment as Murphy, who has appeared fairly nonchalant about the demise of his band up until this point, breaks down in front of us. It’s as if it’s just dawned on him exactly what it is that he’s walking away from.

LCD Soundsystem were an interesting proposition from the moment the first singles landed. Critics called it ‘disco-punk’ and, really, they weren’t wrong.  Think mirrorballs with some of the squares missing, crackling neon lights reflected in puddles inside sweaty basement clubs, dusty speaker stacks which could withstand nuclear attack and grimy nightclub toilets caked in 30 years’ worth of graffiti, revealing secrets like modern day hieroglyphics. Think Mark E Smith and David Byrne sitting at the back of a run-down Studio 54, sharing a joke and a drink. Think the late ‘70s and early ‘80s, but with the benefit of hindsight.

If 2005’s self-titled debut showed LCD Soundsystem to be more than just chancers who got lucky with a few catchy singles then ‘Sound of Silver’ was confirmation that Murphy was truly on to something special here.

The first album, while great, felt more like a collection of tracks. By contrast, ‘Sound of Silver’ actually feels like a cohesive piece of work to be listened to and enjoyed in one sitting.

Seven-minute opener ‘Get Innocuous!’ builds up slowly but surely, from the gentle electronic brush beats to the driving, insistent bassline and synth stabs, while ‘Time To Get Away’ picks up the tempo with its Billie Jean-style beats and – yes – that familiar cowbell.

‘North American Scum’ pays homage to the Buzzcocks’ ‘Something’s Gone Wrong Again’, as Murphy, in his trademark just-woken-up drawl, sets the record straight on his group’s origins (“And for those of you who still think we’re from England – we’re not, no.”) and laments the New York authorities’ ever-tightening iron grip on his beloved city’s nightlife (“We can’t have parties like in Spain, where they go all night/Shut down in North America/Or like Berlin, where they go another night – alright!”).

The curiously euphoric ‘Someone Great’, with its throbbing, distorted synths, could be the greatest song the Human League never made, while ‘All My Friends’ starts with a single, repeated piano riff which gradually builds into a full-blown masterpiece which sits somewhere between Krautrock (the Motorik drumming is all present and correct) and Joy Division. Murphy sings about growing older, reflecting on your life and realising that even though all your friends have also moved on, it would be great to see them all just one more time, to catch that last fleeting glimmer of youthful exuberance before it fizzles out completely.

We head back into cowbell disco territory (but it’s what they do so well) for ‘Us V Them’, with its Talking Heads-esque chorus and Nile Rodgers-style instrumentation and hypnotic “Us and them… over and over again” refrain. This is the point in the night when you feel cool drops of water landing on your head and look up to see the club’s ceiling glistening with condensation, the falling droplets sparkling like diamonds caught in the strobe lights. No time to stop and take a breather. Gotta keep dancing in the disco rain.

‘Watch the Tapes’ is where The Fall’s influence truly manifests itself in all its shouty, ragged glory. This is also the shortest track on the album, at just under four minutes, and beautifully throwaway too. The album’s title track picks up where ‘Us V Them’ left off and while the lyrics themselves border on cringeworthy (Google ‘em), musically ‘Sound of Silver’ is a sleek, brooding blend of disco, house and techno that wouldn’t have sounded out of place somewhere like The Hacienda. There’s even a proper hands-in-the-air breakdown. If you don’t get lost in it then you’re not listening properly.

Closing the album is the brilliantly-named ‘New York, I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down’ is Murphy gazing out over the Big Apple cityscape at 5am, after a heavy night out, and realising that, for all its faults, no other place will do at this very point in time. I like to think he afforded himself a wry smile after closing the piano lid. As he heads to bed, a long-finished record is still spinning on a dusty turntable, the needle swaying to and fro in the run-out groove, the gentle pops and crackles creating reassuring white noise.

So, a remarkable record, but, as we know, all good things must come to an end. In LCD Soundsystem’s case, that seems to have come at a point when many felt they were just getting going, just as the records were getting more ambitious, the concert venues grander. They had another two or three albums left in them, surely?

Nope. After one more album (2010’s universally acclaimed ‘This Is Happening’), the band called it a day with one last concert at New York’s Madison Square Garden on April 2, 2011.

Is that really it? For now – yes. Better to go out on a high than to continue for the sake of it and risk becoming a self-parody, dragging out the same tired routine three decades later, right? S’pose so.

But if Murphy DOES decide to revive LCD Soundsystem in the near or distant future then I’d like to think it won’t just be for the money – it’ll be because he remembers that moment, in that storage room after that final gig, when he broke down in tears. When he remembers exactly what it is he walked away from.

Hip Hop Hump Days #8: DJ Shadow – Endtroducing (1996)

A common criticism levelled at DJs is that they’re essentially just playing music someone else has made.

Big deal. Some people choose to express themselves creatively via a set of turntables instead of picking up a guitar. No one’s pretending to be Jimmy Page here.

DJ Shadow has taken this concept one step further by using someone else’s music to make music of his own. And by that, I don’t mean he’s just lifted a familiar old vocal sample and stuck it over a drum machine and then tried to pass it off as his own.

Nope. He’s dug deep in the dusty crates of record shops, thrift stores and garage sales to find the elements that make up almost the entirety of ‘Endtroducing’. Drums, pianos, strings, guitars, basslines, snatches of dialogue… they’ve all been painstakingly extracted from these forgotten slabs of vinyl and then looped, manipulated or generally reconstructed to create something completely different.

The result is one of the most ground-breaking, cinematic-sounding examples of instrumental hip hop you will ever encounter. ‘Endtroducing’ is a record that many have tried to emulate (even Shadow himself has struggled to match it) but no one has yet come close to capturing its widescreen atmosphere and creative genius.

Opening with ‘Best Foot Forward’, a 48-second sound collage of hip hop samples, the album takes a decidedly eerie turn almost from the word go with second track (and arguable highlight) ‘Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt’ conjuring up images of being chased through an endless, rapidly darkening forest by an unseen force, soundtracked by an emotive piano loop, slightly sinister female choir and interview snippets.

Shadow’s penchant for cutting up and then painstakingly rebuilding beats is evident throughout, particularly on ‘Stem/Long Stem’, where industrial machine-gun drums tear mercilessly through gentle strings and harp, and ‘The Number Song’, in which percussion becomes the lead instrument. On ‘Napalm Brain-Scatter Brain’, drums slowed down to a dreamlike pace evolve into sprawling jungle-style rhythms which, in turn, give way to mellow strings and delicately plucked guitar: the calm AFTER the storm, if you will.

As complex as this may sound on paper, Shadow’s method appears to be taking a relatively simple idea and then gradually adding layers of colour and texture as the track progresses. For example, ‘Organ Donor’ (for the definitive version of this track, check out the ‘Pre-Emptive Strike’ compilation) revolves around a hypnotic two-finger organ riff punctuated by a subtle, vibrating bassline and an unashamedly funky drummer. ‘Midnight In A Perfect World’ is based around a synth loop sampled from Pekka Pohjola’s ‘The Madness Subsides’, seasoned with haunting hints of piano from David Axelrod’s ‘The Human Abstract’ and multi-layered drums, while seemingly disembodied female vocals fade in and out across the airwaves.

The album is broken up with little interludes which, while considerably shorter than the full tracks, are no less atmospheric. ‘Transmission 1’, ‘Transmission 2’ and ‘Transmission 3’ are particularly disturbing, sounding like distress signals from hell transmitted through a detuned radio (in fact, they sample dialogue and effects from the film ‘Prince of Darkness’). ‘Transmission 3’, which rounds off the album, also borrows the familiar and equally unsettling “It is happening again” line spoken by the giant in Twin Peaks during one of Agent Cooper’s visions. There are warmer moments too, such as ‘Why Hip Hop Sucks In ‘96’, a G-funk workout lasting less than a minute which ends with a knowing voice exclaiming “it’s the money” (see what he did there?), and an untitled track in which an unidentified man talks about a girl having eyes “as big as Jolly Ranchers” over a laidback blues-funk background.

‘Endtroducing’ demonstrated that a hip hop record didn’t need to rely on vocals – it was about the attitude, the ideas and the method (2006’s bitterly disappointing ‘The Outsider’ was widely criticised for focusing too heavily on guest vocalists and relegating the music to second place).

However, while forward-thinking in its approach and realisation, ‘Endtroducing’ also serves as something of a history lesson, going full circle to recapture hip hop’s formative years in the early to mid-70s, when DJs such as Kool Herc would play just the percussion elements of records, missing out the vocals, to create something new – even going as far as to buy two copies of a record so that he could stretch out those breaks. As Herc stood behind the turntables at those parties in the Bronx 40 years ago, he couldn’t possibly have envisaged that his sonic experiments would go on to inspire a global movement which, in turn, would give birth to one of the most important albums of the 90s.

‘Endtroducing’ continues this proud legacy. Those dusty junk shop records are the orchestra and DJ Shadow is composer and conductor combined. Encore.