The Endless Feedback Loop: DJ Shadow Brings it back

So excited for DJ Shadow's new album "The Less You Know, the Better." Technophiles and music geeks alike can delve deeply into this one. I dig the politically ubiquitous message, and the tunes? Well Mister Shadow puts it rightly:

"I think it’s a high point. I feel better about this record than I’ve felt in a long time, and that’s not a slight to any of my other albums. I know how hard it is to satisfy myself with any project, and it’s only happened once or twice before, if at all. [Laughs] I feel really good about this one. It musically represents what I do better than anything I’ve done in a long time."

Some more choice quotes from Scott Thrill's Wired interview with Shadow (lucky bastard):

The jist of the message...

"It’s a democracy failure Davis saw crushed up close, given his proximity to Silicon Valley, where titans like Apple and Google sprouted from technological culture jammers into the undisputed masters of Wall Street’s universe. ...The smart-ass gadgets’ emotional detachment, as well as the internet age’s intensified polarization, signify what DJ Shadow calls a disturbing trend of technocultural “groupthink.”



On working with Posdnous from De La Soul ...

"I find myself missing people who are actual people rather than caricatures, especially in hip-hop. When we were talking about the track, I told him how much I miss messages in rap that had to do with a shared experience."

(For this album, Shadow also collaborated with Talib Kweli, Tom Vek, Yukimi of Little Dragon, and African Boy:



Driving the point home...

"One of the creepier moments of the last year that struck me was how my mother, who barely uses the internet, clicks on a news story, and then is guided by algorithms to the same stories and publishers. It seems innocuous and innocent enough, but it does mean she’s getting a skewed sense of the news. The more I think about it, the more I see it manifested in her. It’s pretty worrying. I don’t think people really understand what they are choosing to engage, and it’s in no corporation’s interest to inform them. It’s very similar to early television. No one wanted to talk about its potentially harmful effects. It took a long time for television to develop a conscience, and I think we’re seeing the same thing with new media."





Have a listen to the full album.