Diminishing returns

DJ Shadow's Diminishing Returns is, on most days, my favorite DJ mix ever.

Shadow recorded it in 2003 as a BBC Essential Mix. Essential Mix is a long-running weekly show featuring mixes from big-name producers and DJs. More often than not, it's 2 hours of indifferently mixed techno from guys who make a lot of money in Ibiza.

Shadow's mix was a completely different thing. It's an amazing selection of eclectic, mostly unheard songs that's cleverly sequenced and masterfully mixed. It was far beyond what anyone else was doing at the time and, to me, remains the apex of the hip hop-influenced digger/DJ mix.

The first 80 minutes of the mix are largely built around unknown late-'80s rap. Diminishing Returns was made at about the same time as the random rap craze was taking off and it's hard not to hear it in light of that. DJ Ivory had already dropped one volume of Hear No Evil and Ultimate Breaks & Beats-based NYC obscurities were starting to draw a lot of attention from other DJs and collectors.

While Shadow covers some of the same ground that Ivory and others did, he leavens some of the oppressive purism of those mixes by incorporating a lot of other stuff-- current mainstream Southern sorta hits (8ball & MJG's "Put Your Hands Up") and oddities (Tow Down's "Country Rap Tune"), backpack experimentation (Beans's "Mutescreamer"), ancient regional goofs (SF's RSP Crew on "MC School") and neglected classics (Mantronix's "Hardcore Hip Hop"). There's some scratching, some doubling, some blends and enough variety in the mixing that it never feels static. Shadow then closes out the first half with a series of oddball covers (Gary Numan, Hall & Oates & Queen) and silly dialogue that act like comic relief before changing up styles completely.

The second part of the mix is largely made up of '60s psychedelic rock. As with the first half of the mix, most of the selections are things that were largely off the radar of both other DJs and collectors-- not necessarily incredibly rare or even unknown, but not sweated collectibles either. The selections are impeccable-- moody and haunting but also soulful and even a little funky. The mixing in this part is really outstanding because he takes songs that are really difficult to blend and makes them segue in ways that feel really natural. While the transitions are incredibly musical, he also follows a lyrical/conceptual thread from song to song. Seven years later, it still blows my mind.

Diminishing Returns is available directly from Shadow's website on CD or as a download. If you don't own it or haven't heard it, I can't possibly recommend it highly enough. He also has a lot of other worthwhile mixes for sale there, like the Miami bass mix I'd heard about for years but only heard recently.

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There are a lot of great records that Diminishing Returns led me to. Some I stumbled on, others I sourced from the internet and a few I got from Shadow himself. Shadow never provided an official tracklist, but through collaboration most of the tracks have been identified over the years.

Out of all of the records on the mix, this one evaded me for the longest, bothering me like an itch I couldn't scratch:



Clash "T": "Non-Stop" (B-U, 1989)

I don't know anything about Clash "T" or any of the other artists on the EP this is drawn from. I asked Shadow about this song years ago and I remember him telling me it was from Ohio but there are no explicit signs on the label to bear that out.

The whole release is incredibly lo-fi-- it sounds like it was mastered from a 4-track cassette-- but I love the rawness and enthusiasm of it. Also, the way Clash "T" rides the beat is amazing.