Musings on Endtroducing

I don't really have a favourite piece, but I did notice a few things about the album. The motifs that are found in DJ Shadow's album are (to me) kind of odd, it almost reminds me of one of the looser definitions for music which categorizes music as “organized sound.” It feels odd (to me) mostly because he takes snippets of ideas from various different sources, a fair amount of those ideas hearken back to some jazz roots. There also seem to be some ideas that are taken from what sounds like baroque, classical music and voice recordings from TV shows or speeches or something. Some parts to me it feels like there's almost a disconnect of ideas. Some parts here and there (like at 1:40 or so in "Stem/Long Stem") it feels like he interjects a random idea almost like a person jumping into a conversation for a sentence making a few random comments and then runs off as the music continues more or less where it left off. That being said there actually is some structure to the album as a whole.

“Best Foot Forward” seems to set the environment that the rest of the album is framed. It is almost like a sampling of the different timbres that are going to be present. Most composers have some set of instruments instead DJ Shadow uses the recordings as his instruments for the composition. It showcases some spoken word sections, rhythms and the record spinning type sounds. The second piece, “Building Steam with a Grain of Salt,” I find to be of much more interest because a lot of the ideas that DJ Shadow puts in it, are developed throughout the album. The ideas I think that he develops throughout are the rhythm and repetitive melody. He almost takes the listener on a journey first, exploring the rhythm idea in “The Number Song.” Though the repetitive measures he puts in different sections of the music drives me nuts. It always feels like it is going to move forward but it doesn't and it repeats the theme (one such section is “Organ Donor”) for a while before moving forward. Though I have to admit I don't pick out rhythm or harmony as well as I do melody, but I think he does similar things with the rhythm too it just doesn't drive me up the wall quite the same. The album is rather interesting as a whole it reminds me of the variation form.