We need to talk about DJ Shadow’s - The Private Press! This is his second album and so far, I’ve come back to it many times throughout my life. I recall this being an album that a friend put on my iPod back in middle school (2006-ish) along with Endtroducing..… and it started to make it’s way into the monthly rotation.

Since then, it’s become one of those albums you forget and then ecstatically rediscover every couple of years. When I was young, all music was fair game, and I explored without much reflection as one does. I hadn’t really discovered my taste yet. As I’ve grown older, I find myself revisiting albums like this and appreciating just how exceptional they are. I know I’m biased haha but I believe there is some science to back up this phenomenon.

The Mix

If you didn’t know, DJ Shadow is one of many legendary producers with a mad passion for crate digging. It sincerely reflects in his music. If you think about it, it’s much less work to use a good sample than trying to doctor up a crappy one (speaking from experience). But, as you can see in the video below, it's not a simple process digging through records to find those good samples.

So what we have here in this wonderful collection of tracks is a very defined (and well-sampled) hip-hop-driven drumming foundation poached from god knows where! You’ll be bobbing your head to the beat. AND! It’s very original but there are some classic breaks mixed in. Maaaan it’s tasty!

The Source Material

Now we can go deeper since we’ve already established that the drum sampling is above average. In my opinion, it seems DJ Shadow isn’t just thinking outside the box here, he built his own box. Starting from the top, we get a fun intro from Letters From Home and then jump right in to set the mood/tone of the album with Fixed Income.

This track is so good and gives you an idea about the song structure to come with a mixture of traditional hip-hop grooves and unique/ethereal/deliberate sample layering. Just like Fixed Income, Shadow starts the tracks to follow with a groovy melody (or bassline in this case) and then just builds on it slowly crescendoing up and then breaks it down dynamically.

He continues to showcase his skill with this more traditional hip-hop vibe until we start to unwind into some very experimental tracks like Six Days and finally into my favorite track on the album Blood On The Motorway. This track is not something you might expect on a mostly instrumental hip-hop album, but I think that’s why it shines. It’s a journey and tells a story! I’m surprised I haven’t come across it in a film honestly. It’s also a nice way to wind the album down I think. We wrap up with You Can’t Go Home Again which I also think would go well in a film. It’s fast and builds dynamically just like we’ve come to expect from Shadow.

Why This Album Earned Its Spot

When I get around to making music, and now reflecting on this album as I write this, I think I understand why I like The Private Press so much. It has influenced not just what I like musically, but also how I create my music. I absolutely love the depth and detail of some of the samples found throughout and the space they take up!

It takes a lot of patience to find samples you can work with. Sometimes a sample just works first try, sometimes it takes some work to blend it in and sometimes you have to just scrap it and find something else entirely. So what I’m getting at is I’m really impressed with the alchemy and cohesion of these tracks since they are really just an amalgamation of individual samples plucked from records in Shadow’s collection. And that’s it really. Nothing else to say really, this album speaks for itself! What a BANGER!