Monday, February 06, 2006  

RJD2
Double dipping with the Dead Ringer....

Washington Post, Monday, February 6, 2006; Page C05
"This is easily the biggest show I've ever headlined," a giddy RJD2 told the sold-out 9:30 club crowd on Saturday. The attentive audience stared at the DJ hero born Ramble Jon Krohn and whooped it up whenever the fans recognized a banger off 2002's "Dead Ringer" or 2004's "Since We Last Spoke." But save for a video screen showing random images -- a break dancer on crutches, a performance by the District's Ian Svenonius, urban decay, cows -- there wasn't much to look at: just a clean-cut and stripe-shirted RJD2, a sampling drum machine, four turntables and a microphone. For beat nuts, that was enough.

RJD2's name has been on the lips of underground hip-hop and turntable fans since the mostly instrumental "Dead Ringer" picked up where DJ Shadow's 1996 classic cut-'em-up "Endtroducing . . ." left off: big beats layered with found sounds and soul samples to create first-rate collage music. After opening with a mash-up of classic rock, soul and hip-hop beats that neatly summed RJD2's eclectic aesthetic, the DJ ventured into his own tunes, like the rainy-day trip-hopper "Smoke and Mirrors" and the garage-guitar cruncher "Exotic Talk." On the latter, RJD2 recalled the electro-rock energy of the Chemical Brothers; on the former, it was the laid-back melancholy of Portishead. In between those extremes were the sorts of musical blends that have made RJD2's productions favorites among indie rappers and sample-spotting fan boys (and girls): "1976" reveled in bongo-flavored cop-funk, "The Horror" mixed a "Mission: Impossible"-type melody with scary-movie voices, and '70s-prog synths and dub Melodica shook hands over "Iced Lightning."

After 70 minutes of turntable trickery that finished with the raucous "Good Times Roll Part 2" -- which features the audience call-and-response "Are you ready? Do you want to hear it?" -- RJD2 came back for a one-song encore. But rather than return to the vinyl, the DJ morphed into a folk singer: He picked up an acoustic guitar and, in a shaky voice, sang his sensitive ballad "Making Days Longer." Top-class instrumentalist DJs have feelings, too. --Christopher Porter

Washington City Paper, City Lights, February 3-12
It's been nearly 10 years since DJ Shadow dropped Endtroducing..., one of the finest cut-and-paste DJ albums ever. Considering Shadow hasn't done all that much since, the field's been wide open for someone to step into his place. Hello, RJD2. After a few well-received productions for MCs, RJD2 made his official solo debut in 2002 with Dead Ringer, which was hailed as an instrumental-hiphop classic. His follow-up, 2004's Since We Last Spoke, introduced a wider variety of influences and sounds, though sometimes to the detriment of the album's cohesiveness. But RJD2 hasn't looked back -- he's been spreading his vinyl wings ever since. He scored the graffiti-tag video game Marc Ecko's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure. And he produced Magnificent City for rapper Aceyalone (due out Tuesday) and collaborated with Blueprint for Soul Position's Things Go Better With RJ & Al, which drops later this year. Get your head-nod on when RJD2 performs with Sharkey at 10 p.m. at the 9:30 Club, 815 V St. NW. $15. (202) 393-0930. (Christopher Porter)

Posted by CP | Link |

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