The Private Press

Rolling Stone (12/26/02, p.104) - Included in Rolling Stone's "50 Best Albums of 2002" Rolling Stone (6/20/02, pp.81-2) - 3.5 stars out of 5 - "...A moody, murky album...and fascinating in its own right....A 57-minute pastiche of beats, sound effects, machine hums, found voices and mock-symphonic patterns of robot noise, shifting from texture to texture almost casually..." Spin (1/03, p.71) - Ranked #19 on Spin's list of 2002's "Albums of the Year" - "...Indelibly shaped by hip-hop but lured astray by every other sound in the universe." Q (May 2002, p.107) - 4 out of 5 stars - "...Much of [the album] evokes a dream-state between waking and sleeping....Davis is a man who takes himself incredibly seriously, with his intense demeanour and slavish devotion to hip hop..." Q (p.134) - 3 stars out of 5 - "Josh 'DJ Shadow' Davis is undeniably a master of his craft..." CMJ (6/02, p.5) - "...An astounding achievement that should easily catapult Shadow back into the spotlight...soul stirring beats, irrepressible DJ theatrics, personality and humor....Completely captivating and flawlessly imaginative..." Vibe (7/02, p.135) - 3 discs out of 5 - "...The vibe here is more overtly bumptious...Shadow is working angles his contemporaries haven't thought of yet..." Mojo (Publisher) (1/03, p.76) - Ranked #36 in Mojo's "Best Albums of 2002" Mojo (Publisher) (5/02, p.96) - "...An intense experience, precisely focused yet disarmingly ambiguous....You will hear few finer records this year." NME (Magazine) (5/18/02, p.35) - 6 out of 10 - "...This is the fetishasation of sound for its own sake...That's not to say there aren't great moments here..."