HARD SELL: Shadow and Cut Attack Turntablism

It's been nearly eight years since Cut Chemist and Dj Shadow unleashed the legendary 45 vinyl set, Brainfreeze, at Club 550 right here in foggy San Francisco. Last night, the duo returned to quite a different venue in SF, the opulent grandness of the Regency Ballroom, filled to the brim with all sorts of new school knuckleheads.

Things have certainly changed since Brainfreeze.

The cult classic has spread its wondrous seed across the country, giving birth to countless DJ sets infusing a similarly inspired funky soul concept. It would seem redundant for two of the most gifted sonic scientists to simply recreate the original Freeze set from eight years ago that would pose no challenge to their artistic abilities.

Sure enough, with word traveling quickly across hills and internet highways about the original Hard Sell show at the Hollywood Bowl some months ago, it was obvious that Shadow and Cut were not going to duplicate the past. The extended and revised version currently finishing its tour across the country seeks to push musical boundaries into some serious uncharted sonic territory.

In order to embark on such a sound-wave bending and blending journey, Shadow and Cut knew that they had to begin by schooling the kids suckling the teat of the digital age. A vintage style instructional video by Ben Stokes, narrated in the classic PBS style, set the basic rules of the 45 concept oriented set and provided an ample history lesson on a DJ tradition that may be on the verge of extinction.

Only original presses of 45s allowed. These discs have a real physicality in their little nooks and cascading grooves unlike the alienating quality of the virtual medium; MP3s. Each 7'' vinyl has a personalized label. As vintage objects, they have a history completely independent of the music. And therefore, yes - the conservatives gotta' remind the new schoolers - reissues are for cheaters!

The formal constraints of Hard Sell were thereby commanded and brought forth down Mount Sinai (well, the stage) to the ears of the people who had been sleeping with Serrato and getting drunk on iPods. Those fucking sinners.

Actually, before you abandon these false idols, Shadow and Cut made it quite clear that they are not in opposition to the advent of new DJing technology. They simply wanted to test their own musical talents as guided by the strictly 45 tradition.

And for the most part, Shadow and Cut worked their incredible techniques within these constraints in the broadest sense. They pushed aside the largely obscure funk and soul of Brainefreeze and part deux Product Placement in favor of genre twisting gymnastics and abstract sonic manipulation. Using eight turntables and effects processors to play with tones and echoes, they tore apart each genre into its bare elements, leaving a minimal pulse that then served as a catalyst for deconstructing the next targeted genre.

We were taken on a historical odyssey through percussion based music (including influences and roots) with an emphasis on the conceptual arrangement of the whole structure of the set rather than the transitions from one obscure soul side to the next. Sounds pretty insane right? Alright, let's try to break it down a little bit and then build it back up.

Hard Sell initially hit the decks with a rising staccato drumbeat underlying swishing spacey atmospherics and droney clashes. The sound immediately brought to mind some of the more abstract musique concrete, clashing everyday urban sounds with the dreary whirring of krautrock. While the drums burst forth consistently, sounds of trains and buzzing progressed into a pumping electronic beat. Cut and Shadow really worked the scratching, tearing apart the tone and melody so as to reconstruct the sounds with the mixer.

The scratching served as a transition for not only some breaks but full reconstructions of Classic Hiphop beats - most notably a rendition of Pharcyde’s “Passing me By,” leading into Apache - that was then cut into its basic pummeling elements for Nas’ “Made you look.” Cut and Shadow really showed off their skills by recreating good portions of De La Soul tracks from the 3 Feet High and Rising era. Plug one, plug two. . . I don’t think standing anyone around me knew what was going on even at this point – and it was only about to get stranger.

The short funky soul chapter slipped quickly into a chopped up medley of Cumbia, Psychedelic, Honky Tonk, New Wave, and straight up Rock N’ Roll. Rather than seamlessly mixing the tracks together by their driving rhythms, Cut and Shadow chopped up the beats into new sounds and progressions. However, it was not entirely apparent what unifying factor, if there really was anything besides the 45 concept, tied together the movement of sounds. I’m still struggling with the words to capture the fundamental concept that drove the set forward. It sounded like a David Axelrod arrangement cut up by the Scratch Pickles and then infused with progrock fuzzed out guitars and Atari bleeping atmospherics.

Making it even more difficult to understand, Shadow and Cut seemed to have three finales. First, the myriad themes of love songs, cheesy alt rock joints, video game effects and break on through to the other side psych whizzed off into a Twighlight Zone world of scraping musical saw loops and cosmic slop bursts on top of pounding bass heavy drums that literally shook your bones. It felt like Shadow and Cut were trying to shake you apart so you could listen to the uncanny music from outside yourself.

Second Finale: The duo strapped vintage portable turntables and mixers to their bodies like jedi warriors, toting DJ guitars and prepared for heavy metal. They offered a scratching rendition of Metallica’s “One” that made the crowd go crazy – if not for the quality of sound, then at least for the novelty. That was it. For the third and finale Shadow and Cut threw on some Al Green “Let's Stay Together” and called it a night.

Alright, I get the picture that the portable turntable guitar goes to show that the turntable is a serious instrument for not just mixing music together but for actually creating new music. Turntablists can manipulate sound out of recorded disparate elements and produce new patterns in the process. Is that it though? Is there more, or are we supposed to not take it any more seriously? I’m not sure, but I do know that this set challenged if not the concept of turntablism then at least the content of it, and will hopefully lead to an onslaught of committed experiments with this music – not just searching for the perfect beat, but reinterpreting what all that even means.

You can find the non-extended version of the Hard Sell.

Cop Brainfreeze and Product Placement.