DJ Shadow's recent release, Diminishing Returns, includes a BBC mix recorded live back in 2003 – something diehard fans have been aching over for years – and a previously unreleased track, “War is Hell” from 1999, all of which provide a seemingly accurate summary of Shadow’s “digging” expeditions over the years. Particularly in the midst of all the mix madness as of late, with highly acclaimed artists such as Girl Talk, it is unfair to even consider grouping Shadow under such plain standards, because the rareness of what he samples is such that it almost makes it seem as if Diminishing Returns is barely a mix at all. The first track, “Give It to Them”, for example, features the Southern hip-hop gem, Cool Breeze, with “Cre-A-Tine” (“I got people who still on parole, I got people on house arrest…”) – a song that enjoyed fairly minor popularity in its time, thus leading to its seeming nonexistence to the modern, mainstream hip-hop audience. It is this fusion of rarities and old gems, creating an illusory portrayal of Diminishing Returns as an original work rather than a mix, that grants Shadow a separate grouping from other mix artists of this age.  Another point of interest is that Shadow also ventures into his typical “beatscaping” later in the aforementioned song, playing on border-line industrial elements at times, thus presenting another dimension of what makes his mixing superior to others, as it is not only his choice of samples that makes him so good, but simply how well-structured the music is.

DJ Shadow: Diminishing Returns: Rock To The Rhythm

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