DJ Shadow - Endtroducing.....

Few debut albums have changed music as completely as this one. Released on September 16, 1996 on Mo' Wax Records, Endtroducing..... is the record that proved what was possible when a single artist, armed with two turntables, a sampler, and an incomprehensible depth of crate-digging knowledge, sat down alone in a record store basement in Sacramento and built something entirely new from the wreckage of everything that had come before.

Certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the first album constructed entirely from sampled material, Endtroducing..... is not merely a technical achievement. It is a deeply emotional, immersive, and cinematic work of art that sounds unlike anything made before or since. Josh Davis, who had been developing his craft through a series of increasingly celebrated 12-inch releases on Mo' Wax, spent months digging through the Bop City record store's vast inventory to build the record's extraordinary sample palette, drawing from sources so obscure and so varied that identifying them became a years-long obsession for devoted listeners around the world. The results move through hip-hop, ambient, classical, soul, and psychedelia with a fluid, dreamlike intelligence that refuses any easy categorization.

The track sequence is its own argument for the album as a unified artistic statement. "Building Steam With a Grain of Salt" opens with hypnotic, hypnotic groove and builds to a devastating emotional peak. "Midnight in a Perfect World" is one of the most haunting and cinematic pieces of electronic music ever assembled. "Stem/Long Stem" unfolds across nearly twelve minutes with the unhurried patience of an artist who trusts his material completely. "Organ Donor" is a masterclass in rhythmic complexity and textural depth. The closing suite of "Napalm Brain/Scatter Brain" brings the entire record to a shattering, cathartic conclusion.

Rolling Stone included it in their 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. It appeared on countless decade and all-time lists from publications across the genre spectrum. It influenced Portishead, Radiohead, Burial, James Blake, and a generation of producers who heard it and understood for the first time what sample-based music could truly become.

This pressing is mastered and cut at Abbey Road Studios, ensuring that one of the great listening experiences in the history of recorded music receives the fidelity and care it has always deserved.