from the 12” single, Mo Wax Records, 1994Amassing an assortment of records, so mammoth in size & scope that it would make most collectors cower and moan in convulsed envy, was only the first step on Josh Davis’s (a.k.a. DJ Shadow) path to sampladelic superstardom; in the years that followed this, his first major release as a solo artist, Shadow’s work became something of a holy grail for beatfreaks and breakheads alike. Here he builds the track around a looped sample from none other than the Alex Parsons Project and their space-prog track “Nucleus”; this slow, drugged-out style of instrumental hip-hop-ish beats was dubbed “trip hop” by the music press, but that term is now generally loathed and admonished by the same people who created it---go figure. Shadow’s cred is majorly bolstered due to the fact that he has forgone untold millions of dollars in advertising, only permitting his music to be used once, for the stellar indie documentary about homelessness, Dark Days.
