Endtroducing.....

Junk & Funk : DJ shadow bundles all the clichés of then contemporary hip-hop and...... makes something strangely artistic of it. "Thereby I must make a note that artistic isn't inherently good and vice versa". The roots grow as far as hip hop has existed and they continue to embed the genre to this day on. It's not just straight and clearly hiphop but it's also urban funk , experimental instrumentals with a pinch of Shoegaze for the extra. But above all it rises above the average subject of hiphop not because it is experimental and daring but because it strives so hard in being a sort of beautiful diamond in the rough.
In the rough is certainly a major aspect of Endtroducing, for better or worse. Pieces of ordinary hiphop are juxtaposed with elements such as street sounds, news reel voices, static tweaks and a lot of chopped replays as if someone is making an unprofessional mixtape. These are all elements that pump the jam up and let it breathe it's experimental life but they're in places also the albums downfall in a certain way, I'll explain. This album is about the closest we can come to truly progressive hiphop as in progressive rock but often when it should linger, it cuts and when it should cut... it lingers. This can get agitating in places even though it only makes this mistake a few crucial times for me. On top of that I will throw the compliment that it's sounds are greatly inventive and finely textured to a degree that you could really get lost in the far and behind worldbuilding. It sounds are so layered. Mainly with loud drumwork that has the rare spotlight as the main instrument in such an album as this, it's more than adequate drumming that really is a pace-trapper and guidance to all other elements. These other elements include low growling sounds, hollow voices, record scratches, dreamy background sounds that resemble the ambience sounds I sometimes go to bed with and so much more. At it's best it's one layer of genius atop other layers of genius and at it's worst it's centerless experimentation with sprinkles of genius as if it's all grave sounds floating around nothing. I'd rather think it's the former but the latter bounces back and forth as a possible truth. Hollow or not, it's plenty filled out and maybe every bit of sound editing and note breaking is a way of distracting the listener from the truth. The illusion this editing and mixing allows is one of a much more dreamlike floating quality with abrupt hooks and and imprompt rhythm that might be an ambient sound trying to catch up with an urban hiphop sound and almost being buried under it. In an album where true voices are so scarce and beats are so common maybe it's just a spot in your face didactic piece of hip-hop art.

Disclaimer: New account of @Supertrampz, not stealing.