DJ Shadow was a pioneer from the beginning of his career. His ability to blend a vast collection of samples from different genre and force them into a Hip hop groove both created the genre name Trip Hop and demonstrated his prowess with an AKAI sampler.

His debut album “Endtroducing…” is recognised by the Guinness book of world records as the first completely sampled album. It showed that sampling was just as much an art form as playing an instrument itself. The album works so well because of its ability to demonstrate a versatility in its sounds, without loosing an overall aesthetic.

It can be seen as a love letter to listening to music. It takes a keen ear and a fanatic interest to listen to thousands of tracks and find the samples used in this record. And an artistic sensibility to find the connections between those tracks and curate them.

Mutual Slump is dominated by a massive open drum sound that is chopped and looped to give it a natural swing for the other more ambient textures to bed into. Leaving the track with a dark dreamlike quality that is representative for the rest of the album.

If you want more from DJ shadow (apart from the rest of his catalog). It’s worth watching this Boiler Room DJ set which demonstrates his incredible ability as a Vinyl DJ. Mixing a collection of music with large changes in tempo, key and instrumentation with ease. A calling card for just how great a talent he possesses, something unfortunately rare in a lot of current popular DJ’s.

Boiler Room:

TOTW Playlist: