Josh Davis, a.k.a.
DJ Shadow, couldn't have picked a better title for his new album, The Outsider. Despite flirting with global superstardom a decade back, with his instrumental hip-hop masterpiece Endtroducing ..
., the Bay Area native has always lived, and created, on the fringe.
He was largely oblivious to the accolades he received for that album, to hear him tell it.
And yet he has lived in its, er, shadow ever since.
"I had no idea (about all the hype that was being built up) overseas," Davis said on the phone last week from a tour stop in New Orleans (more on that later). "At home, I was still living in the same crappy $500-a-month apartment.
What did it do for me? Nothing. All of a sudden, I was on the cover of the Sacramento News and Review, which was strange - to get recognition in my hometown.
"In a way, any positive thing that could have come out of the phenomenon in '96-'97 went totally over my head. I started getting offered crappy gigs like, 'Can you do the theme for The Avengers movie?'
"Really?
Is that what success is? Doing soundtracks for crappy Hollywood (productions)? And it's not like I reaped ultra financial rewards.
It was a very underground thing that a lot of people talked about, but wasn't commercially viable. That's why it's so hard to stomach the backlash I've been getting ever since."
The backlash.
Pity the artist who puts out a classic album, only to be expected to repeat the feat with each ensuing release. Endtroducing..
.'s 2002 follow-up, The Private Press, and now The Outsider have been subject to ample critical cross-examination and laceration.
The new album's defiant eclecticism has triggered mixed reviews.
Old Shadow fans seeking epic trip-hop-scapes are left nibbling on crumbs as he throws hyphy (Bay Area crunk-style hip-hop) jams up against '60s psych-pop, ambient cowboy themes and Coldplay/U2-esque rock.
"It goes back to the mix CD I did last year," Davis said. "It starts with Three 6 Mafia, goes into a crunk a cappella over old-school hip-hop, then some hyphy, and by the end, it's psych-rock and breezy surf instrumentals.
I felt that mix really worked. And it actually got positive reviews. So I felt like, OK, maybe people are ready for disparate styles of music.
"It's weird. I can't figure out why it's so difficult for people to comprehend. It's simply how I listen to music.
To me it's normal. I felt like on this record, it was no holds barred. I know people aren't going to like every song, but hopefully they'll open their mind to some music they have prejudices against.
"
To further make his break with the past, Davis did away with his previously religious reliance on sampling. (Endtroducing..
. was made entirely from samples, and was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records in 2001 for the feat).
"I just wanted an album that sounded different from the last one," he said.
"I figured that one way to bring that about was to change my methods, equipment, everything. I decided I didn't want to make another record on the MPC sampler. I spent a year after touring for The Private Press being tutored on new equipment, and learning to make music in new ways.
I didn't want to get stale, or repeat myself.
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