Hear DJ Shadow Break Down “Mutual Slump” On Song Exploder
On the great Song Exploder podcast, musicians spend a few minutes breaking down one of their tracks, telling the stories of all the tiny decisions that go into making a piece of music. Usually, the songs discussed are fairly recent, but on the newest episode, DJ Shadow gets into one of his classics. Shadow’s deeply classic Endtroducing… just celebrated its 20th anniversary, and on the show, he tells the story of his album track “Mutual Slump.” It’s a great episode because it involves all the samples that went into the track — including Björk’s “Possibly Maybe,” which Shadow wanted in there because it was obvious and it would throw off crate-diggers looking for his more obscure stuff. Also, the dreamy voice samples on the track — “do you feel like Darth Vader?” — come from Shadow’s then-girlfriend and now-wife, who he recorded at Dan The Automator’s studio. Listen to the episode below.
Shadow’s new album The Mountain Will Fall is out now on Mass Appeal.