DJ Shadow – The Mountain Will Fall

This is totally surprising from Shadow. I haven’t expected much from him anymore, which does not mean he cannot set up a great DJ set or even a cool (and mostly nostalgic) live session. But any new material that I would find truly fascinating – not something on my bucket list.

And yet, here it is. An album that I have already listened to quite a few times and like to hear any next time. Nobody Speak is a huge smash that I instantly saved to my hiphop playlist. Depth Charge is some deep and dark triphop tune that crawls under your skin. (Also its main hook resembles much the track Conquercrete from the Hungarian live triphop band Realistic Crew.) Than there is Bergschrund written with Nils Frahm and which is an amazing collaborator find, if this was a movie I would call it casting quite nailed. But actually all the tracks are truly great even to the very end where Suicide Pact holds some memory sparks for me coming from the brutal and brutally graphical video game Hotline Miami – same atmosphere.

Anyway. Shadow did it again. And I like it a lot that he did.