And why should we

DJ Shadow - 'What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 – Blue Sky Revisit)' / 'Transmission 3' (Endtroducing..... - 1996)

DJ Shadow's Endtroducing... is a one-man dissertation on hip-hop's history up to the mid-90s. At that point, only Paul's Boutique and 3ft. High and Rising had packed a similar punch. Since I Left You, J Dilla and Flying Lotus have investigated similar territory in the years that followed.

As the NME said in a review at the time, the talent on display is akin to Hendrix with the guitar, making him the "Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page of the sampler."

Before the album came out, several singles were released on James Lavelle's Mo' Wax label. DJ Shadow named the album Endtroducing... precisely as he felt the album was the end to the cycle that started with those singles. It is a labour of love from a crate-digging obsessive, bringing hundreds of samples together and curating something additive from them all. It has elements of hip-hop, trip-hop, electronica, ambient, and jittery drum and bass. Each track on the album brilliantly segues into the next in a way that even The Beastie Boys' B-Boy Bouillabaisse doesn't quite manage. It also has those snippets from movies that drift in and out of the songs, much like The Orb's seminal 'Little Fluffy Clouds' 

The final track proper 'What Does Your Soul Look Like (Part 1 – Blue Sky Revisit)' and the outro 'Transmission 3' are perfect endings to the album of a Californian record geek's download of his brain. I can almost picture the West coast US cityscape at dusk, I can see the sun setting over a Californian beach and that last bit of deep blue sky rolling off the edge of the horizon as the black above it takes over. That lazy sax riff is fading in and out like waves lapping at your feet. You can bathe in the melancholia.

Around that sax line from The Heath Bros "The Voice Of The Saxophone" are Shawn Philips "All Our Love" and "Star Eyes" from Irene Kral as the vocal snippets, as well as a brief bit of Alan Parsons Project in the intro and drums from David Young's "Joe Splivingates".

A third and final transmission segment that closes the album features dialogue from John Carpenter's film, Prince of Darkness. ("This is not a dream….") as well as closing on The Giant in episode 15 of Twin Peaks saying to Cooper

"It is happening again…, It is happening again…."

As creepy endings go, it will take some beating