CD reviews: DJ Shadow

Having scratched, sampled, and mixed and matched his own curious amalgam of ragged electro hip-hop over a career spanning some decades, DJ Shadow's latest effort is a salute to popular entertainment, from the video game bleeps of Three Ralphs and Mambo, to the distorted submarine pings that are fused to weird-as Spanish guitar and a military snare beat in Depth Charge.

Overall, however, it's a little too playful, too reliant on knowing winks to its broad range of source material and, almost sadly, works best when old tricks are reused: as is the case with The Sideshow, on which a dusty breakbeat is allied to rapper Ernie Fresh's relaxed delivery.

• DJ Shadow. The Mountain Will Fall. Mass Appeal.

• Three stars (out of five)

Single download: Nobody Speak (feat. Run The Jewels).
For those who like: The Avalanches

- Shane Gilchrist