THE GOOD NEWS:
DJ Shadow is simply a genius when it comes to manipulating samples.

THE BAD NEWS:
As an album, this one doesn't work as well as Endtroducing, and I should note that Shadow is not for everyone (a lot of people think his stuff is boring). Also, Shadow's skills weren't quite honed to perfection when many of these tracks were recorded.

Yo, what's up? I'm snowed in here. School has been cancelled for the last three days, and I just got power back last night. Anyway, I was just sitting here, bored out of my mind. Yes, even bored enough to write these reviews, although I really didn't feel like writing one that would take a lot of time. So, all of the sudden, a light-bulb clicked on above my head. . . why not review something that doesn't have any lyrics? And then I thought, DJ Shadow's new album fits the bill.

For those unfamiliar with DJ Shadow and his music, let me briefly go over a few things. DJ Shadow is Josh Davis, a white kid from Northern California. First of all, he's a DJ (duh). He doesn't rap, got it? But, he does scratch, mix, sample, produce, and make some all-around fonke music. I'm not exactly sure where he made his start, so I'll name a few different occurences from a few years ago (until we have a DJ Shadow biography, we can never be sure what order they occurred in). Anyway, to my understanding, he helped produce some of the tracks on one of Paris's early albums. I don't own any albums by Paris, however, so I'm not really sure what he produced where. All I know is that a lot of his early studio experience came from working with Paris. Sometime a few years ago (I assume when he was in college), he and a bunch of his buddies, who are now known as Lateef the Truthspeaker, Blackalicious, and Lyrics Born, among others, formed a crew and record label called "SoleSides." Check out Latyrx's excellent self-titled album (featuring production by DJ Shadow), if you want to hear some of these members.

Anyway, Shadow may be a member and co-founder of SoleSides Records, but as a solo artist, he's signed to Mo Wax, an English record label that, to the best of my knowledge, specializes in techno-y, ravey, Trip-Hop type stuff. Shadow's music could be classified similarly, but I don't think Shadow himself, or many of his fans, for that matter, really think of him as a "techno" artist. No, he's 100% Hip-Hop. I don't review non-Hip-Hop albums.

In 1996, DJ Shadow released his first full album, Endtroducing..... The album was excellent, an instant classic. In my mind, it was the best album released in 1996. It was beautiful, if I could describe it so simply. I purchased it late in that year, without much knowledge of Shadow or that sort of music, in general, but only a few weeks after buying it, Endtroducing became one of my all-time favorite albums.

Since then, Shadow has sorta laid low. I don't think he really wants to be a star at all (he's turned down offers to appear on several soundtracks, including a rumored offer from George Lucas to conduct the score for the new Star Wars film set for release in 1999), and has instead stayed behind the scenes, producing new tracks recorded by his fellow SoleSides members. It wasn't until early 1998 that Shadow again released music himself.

Instead of an album of new music, Preemptive Strike is a collection of singles released on vinyl on Mo Wax Records in England, many of which were recorded before the release of Endtroducing. The only way that anyone in the States could hear these songs would be if they purchased import copies, which, as you might guess, would be very pricey. Props to DJ Shadow for putting something like this together for his fans.

Now, on to the album. . . Preemptive Strike doesn't flow together like Endtroducing did, being that DJ Shadow didn't originally intend for these songs to work together as an album. They were just singles. So, of course, the album gets a little shifty from time to time, but that's a small fault. Early songs such as "In/Flux" display the genius that Shadow would soon realize.

Keep in mind that I said "would soon realize." At the time when DJ Shadow produced a great deal of these tracks, he hadn't quite gotten the knack for making such incredible music as that found on his debut LP. Listening to this album is almost like listening to DJ Shadow-in-training. Not that it makes Preemptive Strike a bad album, but this isn't really an album like his last one was (on Endtroducing....., I still don't know the names to a lot of the songs, even though I've played the CD a hundred time, as the album flows so well that the individual tracks almost blur together). It's a collection of songs. Some are really good, others are just pretty good.

One of the really good songs on this album was "High Noon." With a powerful guitar sample and seemingly countless drum-loops, this seems to be the ultimate DJ Shadow single. Other tracks such as "Hindsight" and a remix of Endtroducing's "Organ Donor" sound nice enough, but don't live up to the excellence of much of Shadow's other work.

Also included here, and taking up about half of the first disc, is the entire version, that's four parts, of "What Does Your Soul Look Like." However, two of the parts already appeared on Endtroducing, giving one the feeling of almost getting ripped off.

Just to make sure that nobody actually did feel like they were getting ripped off, a second disc is included with Preemptive Strike. This bonus, at no additional cost, at that, is a DJ Shadow Megamix entitled "Camel Bobsled Race" (what?), done by the Invisibl Skratch Piklz' DJ Q-Bert (who performed all of the scratches on the Dr. Octagon album, my last review, by the way), who scratches over much of Shadow's previous work. At over 24 minutes long, it is a lengthy interpretation of Endtroducing (as well as older tracks) by Q-Bert that just didn't do much for me. I guess it was cool the first few times. . . but beyond that, it's not really worth listening to, in my humble opinion, as Q-Bert pretty much just messes up songs that were already excellent. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

If you liked Endtroducing....., you'll like Preemptive Strike, as well, just not nearly as much. At least that's how I felt. For fans of this type of music, this is well worth checking out. Getting to hear the evolution of this guy was just plain fun. A lot of the songs on here make for some nice listening whether you're contemplating the universe or just sitting around getting stoned. However, this album can't even come close to Endtroducing. Be sure to take a good listen before you buy. This one is for Shadow fanatics only.

---Steve Clark

Did I get it wrong? E-mail me at stevec@netnitco.net with all comments or questions you may have.

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