That offer was quickly accepted and, five years after his first single release, resulted in an expansive and undulating album that, as DJ Shadow described it at the time, ‘ applied old lessons to 1996’. The album came about after James Lavelle, the head of Mo’ Wax, contacted Shadow offering him a home for his music and encouraging him to continue with his experimental style. Released in September of 1996 on the Mo’Wax label, DJ Shadow’s Endtroducing is an evergreen of the musical landscape. The dust has not settled, the tones never faded. It feels slightly strange to be trying to write a retrospective of a 25 year-old album that really sounds like it could have been released yesterday.
On the 25th anniversary of its release, Dave Beer listens back to its undulating beats and is surprised to find a record that seems to capture something of 2021… DJ Shadow’s 1996 album Endtroducing wasn’t so much an LP as a cultural moment.
