DJ Shadow announces seventh album, ‘Action Adventure’

DJ Shadow's seventh studio album, ‘Action Adventure’, will be released on October 27 via Mass Appeal/Liquid Amber —the US DJ/producer has confirmed.

Sharing the news on Instagram, DJ Shadow - aka Joshua Paul Davis - shared the full tracklist to the new record, alongside western-themed visuals for the LP's first single 'Ozone Scraper'.

"It's been a long time coming, but my first single from the new album is OUT," DJ Shadow writes. "As a song, 'Ozone Scraper' is intended to articulate a feeling of speed, but for the video, I thought it would be fun to tell the story of a humble villager with a very SLOW bike...that is, until his imagination takes over. I'm very proud of both the song and the video, and hope you enjoy!

The video for ‘Ozone Scraper’ was directed by London based visual artist, photographer and film director Stefano Ottaviano, who has also been involved in visual projects for Diplo and the Nike x Crxss Platfxrm x Stööki campaign.

‘Action Adventure’ is a largely instrumental album composed entirely by Shadow without any featured artists. He tells album listeners: “This is about my relationship to music. My life as a collector and curator. All my records and tapes, and no one else’s.”

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The first five words of that final sentence are the first sampled words (and some of the only words) that we will hear on the album.

The album features a wide range of obscure influences, including a track partly inspired by an a eBay acquired bundle of 200 dance R&B and early hip-hop tapes that were recorded from the radio of a small Baltimore and D.C servicing station, and songs created by listening to records he had not yet heard from his 60,000 strong collection.

On speaking about his methods, he said “ I didn't want to write music that was formatted for vocalists. I wanted to write music that flexed different energies,”. To do this, he asked questions along the lines of “which chord progression would be most natural here, and which would be least predictable?”, working entirely with his own “inner logic”.

The turntablist took the art of sampling to new heights with the release of his 1996 debut seminal album, the highly influential ‘Endtroducing….’, and has since cemented himself at the core of forward thinking electronic music.

Check out the music video for ‘Ozone Scraper’ here, the album's pre-order link here, and the full tracklist below.

1. Ozone Scraper
2. All My
3. Time and Space
4. Craig, Ingels, & Wrightson
5. Witches Vs. Warlocks
6. A Narrow Escape
7. You Played Me
8. Free For All
9. The Prophecy
10. Friend Or Foe
11. Fleeting Youth (An Audible Life)
12. Reflecting Pool
13. Forever Changed
14. She’s Evolving

Tiffanie Ibe is Mixmag's Digital Intern, follow her on Instagram