UNKLE
Psyence Fiction

Release Date: 1998 | Tracklist

An excerpt from T. S. Eliot's 1922 Modernist masterpiece, The Waste Land:

What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water. Only
There is shadow under this red rock,
(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
And I will show you something different from either
Your shadow at morning striding behind you
Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
I will show you fear in a handful of dust.

During the waning seconds of "Transmission 3"--the final moments of "What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 - Blue Sky Revisit)"--the Twin Peaks-sampled voice twice-repeats the warning: "It is happening again". The last utterances of the schizophrenia-tinged recording that is Endtroducing are not so much a retreading of vague events that this record's play alludes to, but moreso a foreshadowing; crate-savvy sound engineer meets shrewd business mind--Josh and James, respectively--UNKLE bringing the menacing sounds of paranoia to an electronic fever pitch.

Psyence Fiction is the product of artistic progression. Endtroducing, as a whole, thrives on the strength of its more open-ended eclecticism: the free-wheeling enthusiasm of "The Number Song", instrumentally contextualized in the vein of golden age hip-hop, ad nauseum, and the ethereal atmosphere of "Stem/Long Stem", bringing to mind "Soundscape To Ardor"-esque Shirō Sagisu, all wrapped in the ominous, jazzy narcosis of Permutation-era Amon Tobin, sprinkled generously with equal parts percussion, funk, and psychedelia; the soul is in the samples.

Its successor is a much more streamlined effort. In trimming some of the quirkier elements of his debut, DJ Shadow positions his copy/paste techniques as building blocks; though, the foundation of his songs still largely deal with the interplay of samples, obscure or otherwise, past or present. However, when he chooses to employ the help of other featured artists, in real-time, the previous interplay becomes an infinite spiral of creativity; original songs becoming the foundation for future original songs. The past becomes the present becomes the future; and vice-versa.

Moreso--or rather, fittingly--this record's aesthetic is spacey; in dimension, as well as dimensions. This is space rock, in the purest of senses; check: Star Wars samples + Twilight Zone samples + Galaxian samples... Zappa was pretty out there, too. In this way, each song is wrapped in these large, cosmic pockets of sound, and given the proper room to develop in and of themselves, but with enough semblances to feed off of each other when listening in succession.

Diversity becomes symbiosis. Kool G's multisyllabic, Mafioso flair in "Guns Blazing (Drums Of Death, Pt. 1)" is the direct foil to Mike D's more calculated and emphasized delivery in "The Knock (Drums Of Death, Pt. 2)". The misleading, acoustic-fronted serenity of "Chaos"--with the assistance of Mark Hollis' piano playing--leads precisely into the subdued, and mournful, fury of the Thom York-fronted "Rabbit In Your Headlights". The light humor of "Getting Ahead In The Lucrative Field Of Artist Management" is the perfect counterpoint to the orchestral crescendos of the latter moments of "Lonely Soul". Not to mention, the natural sequencing of the songs on the album and how one vocal sample answers the queries of another; "Bloodstain" asserts that we are alone, while "Unreal" offers assistance, like a demented exercise in call and response.

It's far too easy to get wrapped up in the intricacies of this album, but at the base of these conspiracy theories are excellent songs; the product of meticulous musicianship, attention to detail, and an appreciation for understatement. The most apt example occurs in the pre-gap. Don't misunderstand it. "Intro (Optional)" is crucial, and as important as any other piece of music Joshua Paul Davis has composed during his genre-splicing career; the appropriate bridge between his first and, what is, arguably, his second album. Beginning as abruptly as "Transmission 3" ended, it makes use of over 60 samples during its 2-minute runtime, before it resolves into the sounds of static and silence, respectively. Polite coercion gives way to perfect cohesion. And though, it seems, records should be--first and foremost--processed objectively within their own individual frames of reference, DJ Shadow's career has highlighted the importance of hindsight/keeping a watchful eye on your surroundings; not unlike the fixated gazes of the Futura-print alien deities that lord over the album's front cover.

The Surrealism of Salvador Dali slathered across the film noir canvas of LIMBO. As I sit here, in an attempt to finish this review, my thoughts travel elsewhere. Brian's "On Some Far Away Beach" drifts into Liars' "This Dust Makes That Mud", like a distant memory. My mind loses any desire to differentiate as it is engulfed by the all-encompassing nature of words and sounds. Maybe, not so much the crunch of the sand and the stirring of the waves, as much as the collecting of dust and the crackling of vinyl; Psyence Fiction plays like an all too familiar game of six degrees of separation, where the pieces aren't all too familiar, and neither was really separate to begin with.

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3.9 excellent

Rank: #132 for 1998