Shadow play

By STEPHEN JEWELL

After numerous dance music publications declared his 1996 debut album Entroducing to be the best dance album of all time, DJ Shadow could be forgiven for feeling the slightest twinge of trepidation when he embarked upon recording his sophomore long player, The Private Press.

However, San Francisco-based Shadow aka Josh Davis, who fittingly hails from the Californian town Davis, has taken the frequently lavish accolades heaped upon Entroducing in his stride.

"I didn't know what to think," says Davis. "Obviously, I was flattered but it wasn't like it was a huge shock. It started out very slow and gradually picked up steam and kept going like that.

"Entroducing wasn't an overnight success, so I took the praise that did eventually come out with a grain of salt because I knew that a lot of the people who were writing those things hadn't listened to the record during the first six months that it was out. But that's okay.

"Sometimes it takes people a while to find what they're looking for, so I took it all as a compliment. But every time I do a record, I try to do something different. I never want to repeat myself.

"As much as people liked Entroducing, and it was a special record to them, the last thing I'd want to do is cater to them by serving up the same meal again.

"You have to try to expand people's minds when you make music. When you present something to your fan base, you have to challenge them."

The Private Press and, in particular, second single Six Days, which is based around a sample from a song by little-known British rockers Colonel Bagshot, owes a debt to obscure 60s and 70s psychedelica.

"I definitely wanted to take in a wider scope of music than I'd taken in before," says Davis.

"Since Entroducing, I've found myself listening to a lot of different types of music, some of which didn't exist in '95/'96 when I was working on Entroducing, such as turntablism, which didn't really exist as a genre back then as far as records coming out on a weekly basis.

"As far as old music goes, I've always been into soul and funk, but I started drifting into what was going on in the garages at the other end of the street, garage rock and music with a similar aesthetic."

Colonel Bagshot's original version was called Six Day War, a title which gives a stronger indication of the anti-war sentiment which also pervades Shadow's radical reconstruction.

"The track is in line with what I was thinking pre-9/11 when I first made the song in May 2001. But it definitely sounds like it needs to be heard, especially after what has happened during the last year, and particularly in the last few months with George Bush wanting to go to war with everybody and anybody just to expand our oil base.

"Besides that, I find it strange that there is no protest music available anymore. You're not going to see it on MTV or hear it on the radio, which strikes me as very strange and unsettling.

"Although I don't consider myself to be a vocally outward, political person, I believe that everybody has a responsibility to at least make their point heard after what has happened in the past year, otherwise governments will roll right over scared and timid people."

Davis is cagey about what exactly those attending his Auckland show on Friday should expect, but he is promising more than the standard DJ set.

"I can tell you what you won't see, which is a band," he says. "That to me has never felt right. I don't make music with a band, so to perform live with a band, just to fit into the status quo of what a live show should be, doesn't feel right. But there's a lot of visuals, which is something I've never done before. I'm really proud of my live set. The reason why you have to say that it's live is because sometimes you go places and people say, he's just DJ-ing, right?

"But it's like, 'No, I'm on stage and I'm not just using some turntables. I'm using four turntables and a bunch of effects.

"I try to put a set together the way a band would. I'm not playing a bunch of other people's music, I'm playing my own music.

"What I'm trying to do is to create an environment where I'm producing music live."

So is Davis, an avid record collector who once bought a record dealer's entire, 3000-strong stock, planning to scour Auckland's second-hand record stores, searching for some long-lost musical gem?

"Yeah," he laughs. "Although that isn't my main motivation for coming down.

" I've heard New Zealand is really beautiful and I'm definitely looking forward to checking it out."

* DJ Shadow plays the Regent on Friday, November 29.