DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall album review: intriguing explorations

The Mountain Will Fall
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Artist: DJ Shadow
Genre: Hip-Hop & Rap
Label: Mass Appeal

Endtroducing will always overshadow whatever else Josh Davis does in his career, but it's 20 years since that seminal debut landed from another planet and the producer leans towards sounds other than samples these days.

The Mountain Will Fall is an album of intriguing explorations with Davis stitching together an impressively varied screen of deep, experimental, rich electronica. He collaborates with Run the Jewels on the bracing and Donald Trump-taunting Nobody Speak, creates a bolshie wall of noise on Depth Charge, finesses some menacing, moody shapeshifting on Ghost Town and pulls a rake of good ideas together (and a spooky Matthew Halsall trumpet line) for album highlight Ashes to Oceans.

There are times when Davis’ all-in approach to sounds and genre doesn’t quite gel as well as intended, but there’s no denying that he sounds like he’s having a whale of a time throughout.