No more hiding for this DJ…

He has come out of hiding and released a new album after two decades. Josh Davis, also known as DJ Shadow, is moving away from his usual sampling style, and using more an instrumental vibe to his latest EP The Mountain Will Fall.

DJ Shadow’s debut album, Endtroducing, will forever be referenced when talking about DJ Shadow. That album has been described as “changing the course of hip-hop history.” However, after that album, his next projects failed and it seemed that his vision of altering hip-hop didn’t happen. It’s no wonder he waited so long to release an EP.

The Mountain Will Fall has deep experimental electronica sounds. He uses shifting sounds that take the listener into a musical trip. The songs seem to sound jumbled up and don’t flow into each other well for the album as a whole. Individually, however, you can see where Davis was trying to accomplish with his new style of music. Before, when he used mostly sampling for his music, there was hardly originality in his production, however The Mountain Will Fall is most original album to date.

The first track on the album, “The Mountain Will Fall” leads its listeners up a musical mountain that continues to build. The instrumental is almost five-minutes long. After the first track, “Nobody Speak” featuring Run the Jewels, is the first of few vocals on the 12-track album. The vocals to the album sort of veer off of what the whole album is, but some listeners might appreciate it after listening to mostly instrumentals for the rest of the album.

DJ Shadow’s new vision for music may seem scrambled up since he is getting a feel for this new deep electronica album, however his legend continues. He has not given up because of failed albums. His experimenting with sounds and different instruments amps up his musical ambiance.