DJ Shadow - Endtroducing (Mo'Wax) Endtroducing is easily one of the most important albums this year. Anyone who has heard any of DJ Shadow's singles will know why. DJ Shadow has made sampling an artform, and has made the word(s) Mo'Wax a cult. Hailing from San Francisco, DJ Shadow's sound is a curious hip-hop ambient mix. The songs ranging from slow trippiness, to crazy hiphoprisy, are all individual, all extremely imaginative. 'Building Steam with a Grain of Salt' is a haunting melody with a pounding drumbeat, whilst 'Mutual Slump' is a bouncy, meaty drum-based track, sampled mainly from Bjork's 'Possibly Maybe', but is stylistically more like 'It's Oh so Quiet'. No longer is ambient music limited to bed-time listening with this album around, Endtroducing is a record to send you either sweetly to sleep or softly into raptures. An album of stunning melody and fierce intelligence, Endtroducing must be heard. by Kenneth Foxe