DJ Shadow, Electric Brixton, gig review: 'Davis remains committed to forging a new way forward'

A rare gig for the mastermind of Entroducing, a benchmark for instrumental hip hop

DJ Shadow

What does an artist do after releasing a debut album of such innovation it immediately marks its creator out as a visionary? It is a question that Josh Davis, aka DJ Shadow, has been wrestling with since 1996 when Entroducing, whose cut-and-paste alchemy, meticulously constructed from samples taken from Davis’s spectacularly large record collection, instantly became a benchmark for instrumental hip hop.

Twenty years later, Davis is still chasing that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow: having toyed with big-name collaboration, guitars and original arrangements with varying degrees of success, Davis hit a dead end. As he announces from the stage at the outset, his latest attempt to re-Entroduce himself involved quitting life on the road and holing himself up in his Californian studio in order to “change the way I worked and make something fresh”. The result was the half-sampled, half written The Mountain Will Fall, his first album in five years and his best in even longer, whose tracks pepper the show.

As the unhurried beat of “The Mountain Will Fall” eases the show into action in front of visuals that often depict travel - be it in space, on the road or in the wild - Davis takes us on a journey of his own as he takes to his decks to deliver a heady, and at times heavy, mix. Tracks from The Mountain Will Fall are injected with life, particularly the Nils Frahm-assisted “Bergschrund”, and “Depth Charge”, whose dirgey riff forcefully impresses.

Davis himself is all action behind his station, variously tweaking his laptop, clattering his drum pad and, to the delight of the crowd, scratching like a demon. He seems genuinely moved too, talking about his love of London (“I’m home”), the value of art and railing against the “bullshit” politics on both sides of the Atlantic: it is surely no coincidence his political missive precedes his recent Run the Jewels collaboration “Nobody Speak”, whose twangy riff and insistent bass line is coupled with some first class (and highly slanderous) Donald Trump baiting.

Inevitably, Entroducing’s material represents the night’s peak. “Building Steam With a Grain of Salt’s” hypnotic piano is augmented with a wash of sound, while the extended, closing “Organ Donor” mutates into a fever. The set’s centrepiece, however, is an unreleased Hudson Mohawke remix of “Midnight in a Perfect World”, a reworking that loses none of its haunting beauty despite adding HudMo’s trademark harsh electronica as it reaches its climax: proof not only of DJ Shadow’s enduring influence but that even when looking back, Davis remains committed to forging a new way forward.