DJ Shadow - Action Adventure (2023)

This does nothing for me at all... i don't understand why he seems to be determined to still make everything sound so bland. He used to make cool shit (endtroducing.... and the private press) but he needs to win me over again

eh, i kinda like it

it's not blowing my balls off and it obviously isn't a patch on his early output, but it's certainly one of the better tunes he's put out in the past decade imo

this album could be decent if it wasn't for the fucking abysmal drums on every track

  On 10/27/2023 at 12:56 PM, Kennylogg Bubblebath said:

this album could be decent if it wasn't for the fucking abysmal drums on every track

It's like he's somehow unlearning how to make music with every album. I couldn't even finish the thing due to the horrendous trappiness ploughing through the tracks.

  On 9/22/2023 at 3:19 PM, silentvision said:

 

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so i listened to the first single at some point weeks ago and don't remember it at all but this track here is pretty fun. it's just a straight 80s/90s R&B ripoff thing, but it's pretty good at it. doesn't have quite the groove it could and doesn't go quite far enough, but it's catchy. 

This is background music for long sessions of boredom.

he confirmed it's no more old school sampling for him... it's all software synths, korg plugins, and generic trap beats nowadays. he will never go back to the MPC. this is a frustrating article to read: https://www.musicradar.com/news/dj-shadow-interview

this is a better article, since he talks a lot about what he was doing back in the '90s: https://www.stereogum.com/2240398/dj-shadow-new-album-unkle-dj-hero-rare-records/interviews/weve-got-a-file-on-you/

it was a good run from him from about '94 - '03. every track he put out had a sense of soul + originality to it. once he moved away from vinyl/tape/vhs samples on an MPC to DAWs, he lost his superpower. 

  On 10/27/2023 at 6:50 PM, zero said:

he confirmed it's no more old school sampling for him... it's all software synths, korg plugins, and generic trap beats nowadays. he will never go back to the MPC. this is a frustrating article to read: https://www.musicradar.com/news/dj-shadow-interview

this is a better article, since he talks a lot about what he was doing back in the '90s: https://www.stereogum.com/2240398/dj-shadow-new-album-unkle-dj-hero-rare-records/interviews/weve-got-a-file-on-you/

it was a good run from him from about '94 - '03. every track he put out had a sense of soul + originality to it. once he moved away from vinyl/tape/vhs samples on an MPC to DAWs, he lost his superpower. 

 

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yeah pretty much nailed it, well said. What a run he had though. Endtroducing is timeless, an all-timer for sure. 

i gave it a shot but i stopped less than halfway through. this is the most nothing sounding record ive heard in a good bit ugh

This is unbelievably bleh

He needs to go back to being poor and only having a stack of vinyls, a record player and an mpc at his disposal.

Listening to it in a vacuum (haven't listened to dj shadow in ages so I don't have a good reference point). I kind of like it, a bit of cheese to it, really softly mixed VST music, kind of reminds me of mark mothersbaugh kinda shit. It's funny though how theres no hard edges at all or any sounds that really stand out in the mix

  On 10/27/2023 at 6:50 PM, zero said:

he confirmed it's no more old school sampling for him... it's all software synths, korg plugins, and generic trap beats nowadays. he will never go back to the MPC. this is a frustrating article to read: https://www.musicradar.com/news/dj-shadow-interview

this is a better article, since he talks a lot about what he was doing back in the '90s: https://www.stereogum.com/2240398/dj-shadow-new-album-unkle-dj-hero-rare-records/interviews/weve-got-a-file-on-you/

it was a good run from him from about '94 - '03. every track he put out had a sense of soul + originality to it. once he moved away from vinyl/tape/vhs samples on an MPC to DAWs, he lost his superpower. 

 

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It reminds me so much of an interview of the prodigy where Liam bragged about using reason instead of his former workflow as it is so much more practical to be able to work on it where ever he wants with his laptop. Everything went downhill afterwards. 
 

my guess is that their sampling led to a huge pile of copyright infringements which they had to settle scaring  them into using this non plunderfonic workflow. Other bands like noisia demonstrated that you can still do the same quality with software if you know how but DJ shadow and the prodigy obviously where not able to operate on the same level without sampling 

I've always been thinking that DJ Shadow should stick to sampled drums. Maybe a bit too much drum machines (real or softw?) for my taste nowadays. This new album does have nice melodies etc layers sure. Slower tracks are nicer I think. But 'A Narrow Escape' is my favourite. Overall this is kinda too mixture of everything and feels to me that the album is named after those electo/synthwave tracks more than the whole package.

But yeah, DJ Shadow is still a talented guy and I will always be interested what he does for sure..

Few artists with this level of influence on music are given this amount of shit. He's done some abysmal shit since the wonder years passed but his entire style of composing was just impossible to maintain legally overnight, quite possible he actually did get bored with it too and he doesn't really have anything to prove. He is a terrific DJ. I enjoyed this album for the most part, it's vibrant and he's clearly having fun. 

  On 4/27/2024 at 9:01 PM, chim said:

he's clearly having fun. 

seems to be having fun here, not a particularly great performance/set or anything, but it had some good moments.

enjoyed his words about 41-42min talking about how you can't go back to being as unexperienced as you once were.