Endtroducing

DJ Shadow‘s ENDTRODUCING is probably one of my favorite albums of all time. Generally speaking, I’m not much of a hip-hop man, nor of much of DJ culture — I have a hard enough time keeping track of the more traditional rock ‘n roll stuff I listen to — so it’s hard for me to talk about albums like that with any kind of authority or knowledge beyond “wow, that sounds really cool”. But there’s something about the grainy, subtle soundscapes of ENDTRODUCING that I really respond to, something undefinable that kind of sucks you in and gets you nodding your head as these weird syncopated beats and ethereal samples swirl around you.

It’s generally considered “groundbreaking” and is revered among the music crit/snob crowd: for example, here’s Rolling Stone’s glowing take (reviewed at the same time as Aphex Twin’s RICHARD D. JAMES, another of these hybrid soundscape/ DJ/ electronic/ mishmash albums from the late 90s.) The important thing to remember, though, is that it’s DJ music, created by one guy, alone in a studio for months on end, layering sample over sample and tweaking the whole thing with computers and synthesizers and God only knows what other kinds of equipment he had in there. Not instruments. Samples.

Haivng said that, here’s the real interesting thing: a video of a high school percussion group performing two tracks from ENDTRODUCING, live, using real instruments — and duplicating the sound so closely that it’s scary. This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. (Here’s clips from both pieces performed as heard on the album, from Amazon: “Building Steam With a Grain of Salt” and “Changeling“.)