Dj Shadow / Less You Know, The Better, The
Album: Less You Know, The Better, The   Collection:General
Artist:Dj Shadow   Added:Oct 2011
Label:Island Records  

A-File Activity
Add Date: 2011-11-06 Pull Date: 2012-01-08
Week Ending: Jan 8 Jan 1 Dec 25 Dec 18 Dec 11 Dec 4 Nov 27 Nov 20
Airplays: 1 2 1 3 1 1 5 2

Recent Airplay
1. Jan 05, 2012: Futurebeat Radio
Circular Logic (Front To Back), Ememy Lines, Going Nowhere
4. Dec 23, 2011: Pumping Iron
Scale It Back Ft. Little Dragon
2. Dec 29, 2011: Happy Hour
Ememy Lines, Circular Logic (Front To Back)
5. Dec 15, 2011: Happy Hour
I've Been Trying
3. Dec 27, 2011: madame psychosis
Circular Logic (Front To Back)
6. Dec 13, 2011: madame psychosis
Tedium

Album Review
HYPRK
Reviewed 2011-10-30
DJ Shadow, infamous crate digger, turntablist, former KDVS DJ, and the producer of the first album to be constructed entirely of samples. Although his 1996 Endtroducing… stands as a classic postmodern masterpiece (and established him as one of the leading figures in instrumental hip-hop) his recent efforts have been a bit lackluster. Although this album certainly isn’t anywhere close to his magnum opus, it is certainly one of his strongest (especially in recent years), and it has some of those fantastic, haunting “Shadow moments.” The 16 songs on this album are composed of hundreds of samples—and represent the kind of stuff that only he could dig up.

Track-by-track reviews on the back

FCC: 3

RIYL: Kid Koala, the Avalanches, El-P

1. Intro track. Hard breakbeat, guitars samples, phone buttons, barks, a crazy smorgasbord. 2. Hard rock with a few chops, a few ambient sampling. In the same vein as The Slew. *3. FCC (shit) Classic break with a sick melodic bassline and some nice perky flutes. Featuring Talib Kweli and Posdnuos. 4. Slow, acoustic. Mellow and atmospheric. A few country elements. Dissolves into the sounds of the subway. *5. Sad and lonely. Just like the title says. Slow plains song over a bad of piano and violin. 6. “Be Yourself” message over a perky driving bassline. An obvious attempt at a single. What? Tries to put together some sort of 80’s retro vibe but falls much too short and ends up coming off more like Block Party than anything else. 7. A 4/4 breakbeat over creepy, wandering foundsound samples. *8. Oozy psychedelic guitar lines and chopped and screwed vocal samples. WATCH OUT: 30 seconds of silence at the end. 9. Short interlude track. Vocal samples about “getting nowhere” over a bouncy drum break. If you have 26 seconds to spare in your show, you might want to put this on. *10. Smooth female vocals, lonely guitar riffs, top-notch sampled percussion. Amazing. *11. HARD percussion. Frantic pace, growling bass and Miles Davis samples. Also a bit of funk. 12. Pained spoken word poetry over a looped bassline and a bit of spooky synth. *13. Slow-building collage. A few chopped up vocal samples, but mostly guitars, drums, handclaps, etc. 14. Soulful. Funky, and alive, the kind of track Prince wishes he could still make. *15. Didgeridoo. Existentialist spoken word. Killer synth lines. The kind of break that only Shadow could dig up. This is golden-era shit. 16. Instrumental version of track 5 with a little more static and a bit of drone.


Track Listing
1. Back To Front (Circular Logic)   9. Going Nowhere
2. Border Crossing   10. Redeemed
3. Stay The Course Ft. Posdnuos And Talib Kweli   11. Run For Your Life
4. I've Been Trying   12. Give Me Back The Nights
5. Sad And Lonely   13. I Gotta Rokk
6. Warning Call Ft. Tom Vek   14. Scale It Back Ft. Little Dragon
7. Tedium   15. Circular Logic (Front To Back)
8. Ememy Lines   16. (Not So) Sad And Lonely