DJ Shadow Reissues Endtroducing and Takes It On the Road

DJ Shadow is rereleasing Endtroducing for its 30th anniversary and touring behind it, with shows beginning in September and a date at the Barbican in London.

Released in September 1996, the debut was built almost entirely from records — a sampler, crates of vinyl and an ear for the loneliest four bars in someone else's song. It became the reference point for instrumental hip hop and pulled a generation of producers toward the idea that the beat could carry the whole record.

For a scene that spent the nineties arguing about whether sampling was composition, Endtroducing settled the question by sounding like nothing else on the shelf.