Out From the Shadows
New releases from DJ Shadow, Doves, Wyclef Jean, Lesser & more
1996’s Endtroducing... introduced electronica as suitable for the LP format before Prodigy started any fires, before Moby earned his hitmaker cred and before The Chemical Brothers dug their own hole. Audacious and stunning, Endtroducing... featured its creator DJ Shadow (born Josh Davis) turning the art of sampling and scratching into an emotional catharsis, with a suite of sonic set pieces that rivaled jazz in terms of building and releasing tension. There wasn’t a dull moment, much less the feeling of a great single surrounded by filler.
Six years later, after lending his talents to various projects (U.N.K.L.E, the Dark Days soundtrack), DJ Shadow finally gets around to a proper follow-up, The Private Press (MCA). Those thirsty for another seamless sea of ingenious samples and textures might be disappointed. Private Press is a moodier, tougher record, and perhaps a tad self-conscious about proving something on braggadocio tracks like “Walkie Talkie” and “Right Thing/GDMFSOB.” Shadow also seems to be scaling back his ambitions; the new album has fewer mesmerizing epic tracks and more one-two punch throwaways (the latter bogging down the disc’s second half).
Still, if Endtroducing... was a revelation for you, I’d argue that the tracks where Shadow exercises confidence—and those remarkable sonic instincts—make Press just as rewarding. “Fixed Income” is mournful and rocking, while “Giving Up the Ghost” and “Mongrel...Meets His Maker” display inspired use of texture and rhythm in the service of dramatics. (They also make you wish the DJ would do more soundtrack work.) And album closers “Blood on the Motorway” and “You Can’t Go Home Again” achieve an emotional resonance that’s both unique and surprising coming from someone who, essentially, makes records from juxtaposing samples.
—Ben Taylor
Earlier this year, Bright Eyes main man Conor Oberst released the album Read Music/Speak Spanish with his side project, Desaparecidos. It was furious, full of punkish anger at the Wal-Martification of Middle America, and only a half-hour long. The new Bright Eyes album, Lifted (or) The Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground (Saddle Creek), could hardly be more different. Oberst’s vocals almost always retain their rage and intensity, but they’re channeled through a variety of styles here: lo-fi indie rock (“Make War”), more straightforward rock (the single “From a Balance Beam”) and even folk and country (“Laura Lament”). The album also includes some elaborate, albeit playful, orchestration: “False Advertising” combines strings with static. Then there’s the first track from Lifted, the eight-minute epic “The Big Picture,” which opens with two minutes of chatter and guitar tuning. Lifted is full of good songs, but it’s a mess, and at 72 minutes, it desperately needed an outside force to rein in Oberst’s runaway talent, or at least to tell him that opening a lengthy song with random noise might be an idea best left on the cutting room floor.
—Steve Erickson
Masquerade (Sony), the third solo album by former Fugee Wyclef Jean, addresses so many societal ills that listeners would be forgiven for craving something more frivolous. Jean’s rapping is erratic, with a boisterous delivery that’s often neither appealing nor joyous. Nevertheless, “Peace God” (which includes a nifty sample of Benny Latimore’s classic Southern soul tune “Let’s Straighten It Out”), “Thug Like Me” and the title cut make effective pleas for religious awareness, social responsibility and sexual restraint; “Keep It Gangsta” effectively challenges “hard” characters to let their actions match their rhetoric. Jean borrows elements of Haitian compass and rara, as well as ska, on “Creole Racine,” and Latino political activist and broadcaster Felipe Luciano meshes nicely with reggae singer Yami Bolo on “The Eulogy.”
Unfortunately, Jean’s penchant for cobbling snippets from vintage rock tunes and recruiting surprise guest stars often inhibits rather than enhances his music. “Oh, What a Night” pulls fragments from both the Four Seasons hit “December 1963 (Oh, What a Night)” and Peter, Paul & Mary’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” but neither melodic hook elevates Jean’s lightweight commentary or Melky’s overly coy vocals. Claudette Ortiz from City High sounds almost bored during her duet with Jean on “Two Wrongs,” while Wyclef’s remake of “What’s New Pussycat?” is just preposterous. When Jean lets his booming voice and personality set the tone for his music, he remains intriguing; his failure to do it fully makes Masquerade merely a good record, rather than a striking, memorable statement.
—Ron Wynn
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