Gatefold cover. What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 4) which is on the CD version of this album, is omitted from this release. Some of the track times listed do not match the actual length of the tracks. These include Stem/Long Stem, which is actually 7:48, not 9:21, **Transmission 2/Mutual Slump which is 5:29, not 4:02 and What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit)/**Transmission 3, which is 7:28, not 5:08.
Alain_Patrick, Aug 14, 2007
According to one of my best friends wise words, "Endtroducing" was a quintessential release of 1996 - not only for the hi-level brekbeats it brought, but for the incredible melting pot of samples brilliantly used and their ensemble result - thanks to the authors very unique research that included Northern Soul, Rare Grooves & Old School Funk tunes from the sixties and seventies.
The quality of the breakbeats present on this masterpiece suggests an abyssal disparity between the musical backgrounds of the contemporary and the old school artists ("Endtroducing" suggests something like the introduction of something from the past, already ended - like something brought from the old times, though through a nowadays bold perspective.
It can be easily figured out on the comparison between the old breakbeats formed by instrumental kicks, snares and hi-hats, created by those Funk bands with the more recent drum machine sequences used since the eighties with the purpose of simulating the original ones. Its not difficult to realize the higher complexity and the artistic level of the older ones.
"Endtroducing" is a sort of a testament of these ancient habilities those rare grooves & Soul-Funk bands had whose fragments were re-constructed magnificently by the multi-talented DJ Shadow.
While the contemporary tecnologies seems to offer an unimaginable amount of possibilities, we realize more than ever the importance of the very essential aspect of our environment: the musical culture.