DJ Shadow - The Mountain Will Fall (10th Anniversary) [2LP]

Ten years on, DJ Shadow's The Mountain Will Fall returns as a 10th anniversary double LP, a reminder of the moment the sampling pioneer stopped looking backwards and started building something new.

Josh Davis had little left to prove after Endtroducing..... reshaped instrumental hip hop in 1996, yet by his fifth studio album he seemed determined to unsettle expectations. Released in 2016, The Mountain Will Fall leaned on synthesizers and modern production as much as crate-dug samples, and it sounded restless in the best possible way.

Its best-known moment is "Nobody Speak," a strutting, spaghetti-western-tinged showdown with Run the Jewels that ranks among the most gleeful rap collaborations of its decade. Elsewhere, "Bergschrund" pairs Shadow with pianist and composer Nils Frahm for something icy and widescreen, while "Ashes to Oceans" brings in jazz trumpeter Matthew Halsall for a slow-blooming, melancholy drift. The title track opens proceedings with a real sense of cinematic scale.

Across the record, Shadow balances the boom-bap muscle of his roots with electronic textures that point firmly toward the future.

Spread across two discs, this anniversary pressing gives the album room to breathe, and it's a fine excuse to rediscover a record that has aged better than many of its contemporaries.