CD Reviews

DJ Shadow | The Less You Know, The Better

Verve (2011)

By DAN WEISS | October 5, 2011

3.0 Stars

Bias alert: 1996's Endtroducing . . . DJ Shadow is one of the most firmly enduring perpetual motion machines in all of musical history, defying genre ("What was trip-hop, dad?") and all preconceived notions regarding an hour filled with turntablism, spoken word, and Metallica samples. The beautiful and deeply-textured "world's first entirely sampled album" (we won't tell Guinness about Lyrics Born's "It's the money" cameo) was instantly both dated and timeless. Six years later, The Private Press was as excellent as an arena-rock version could be, but four years wasn't a long-enough incubation for The Outsider, which made hyphy unfun. So the big question with The Less You Know . . is if five years is long enough to create a Shadow album. The answer is: maybe. Shadow's densest and longest work at first sounds like an overstylized, underwritten retread with lots of superfluous cuts sporting names like "Tedium." But it eventually rewards hard listening: the audacious opening one-two of "Back to Front" and "Border Crossing," the Little Dragon-assisted "Scale It Back," and the maddeningly buried comedy of "Circular Logic" and "Give Me Back the Nights." Worth parsing, just not sure how much.

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ARTICLES BY DAN WEISS

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Wussy's a brilliant Cincinnati four-piece for whom the local record shop turned into a label.

EMPEROR X | WESTERN TELEPORT | November 02, 2011
Every so often a bright, nerdy, nasal-voiced and infallibly catchy male songwriter appears to less critical notice than he deserves for his remarkably concrete lyrics and thoughtful melodies.

SURFER BLOOD | TAROT CLASSICS | October 18, 2011
This is a literal holdover. A charming band of Floridians who realized their musical dream in a dorm room, they made the difficult push to Pitchfork ascendancy and won what they really wanted: a major label deal.

DJ SHADOW | THE LESS YOU KNOW, THE BETTER | October 05, 2011
Bias alert: 1996's Endtroducing . . . DJ Shadow is one of the most firmly enduring perpetual motion machines in all of musical history, defying genre ("What was trip-hop, dad?") and all preconceived notions regarding an hour filled with turntablism, spoken word, and Metallica samples.

DUM DUM GIRLS | ONLY IN DREAMS | September 27, 2011
Kristin Gundred, a/k/a Dee Dee, is no actual dum dum, so she made good where Vivian Girls didn't.

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