Album reviews: DJ Shadow | Declan Welsh & the Decadent West | Dean Owens | Erland Cooper

The synthesizer-heavy compositions on DJ Shadow’s new album provide a sonic portal back to the retro-futuristic early Eighties, writes Fiona Shepherd

DJ Shadow: Action Adventure (Mass Appeal) ****

Declan Welsh & the Decadent West: 2 (Frictionless Music) ****

Dean Owens featuring Will Kimbrough & Neilson Hubbard: Pictures (Songboy Records) ****

DJ Shadow PIC: Koury Angelo

Erland Cooper: Folded Landscapes (Piano Version) (Mercury Classics) ***

Californian producer Josh Davis, better known as DJ Shadow, became the American wing of the trip-hop movement in the mid-Nineties by virtue of a shared love of hip-hop, retro jams and atmospheric soundscapes. Shadow’s engaging soundtracks were sculpted mainly from samples of old soul, R&B and jazz records alongside other examples of second hand vinyl exotica and were the product of a collector as much as a composer mentality.

Davis has continued to be productive, if not quite as prolific as his pre-millennial heyday. He found the pandemic shutdown to be such an unsettling period that, like many, he sought comfort in the sepia-tinted musical past of his vast record and tape collection. Hence the creation of a mostly instrumental new album of synthesizer-heavy compositions which are a sonic portal back to the sort of retro-futuristic early Eighties sound that is also regularly mined for the Stranger Things soundtrack.

Shadow pays tribute to his crate-digging aesthetic on hip-hop influenced sci-fi synth odyssey All My, built round the pitchshifted vocal sample “all my records and tapes”. Witches Vs Warlocks also plays around with wordless choral vocal samples and the soulful vocal hook of You Played Me is a gem of Eighties R&B.

Declan Walsh and The Decadent West PIC: Graham Noble

Elsewhere, however, there are icy synths and laser focus, tough percussive breaks and neon odysseys, action keyboards with eerie top notes and trebly chimes – in the case of Ozone Scraper, made for some movie montage – and pumping, intricate, maximalist riffola delivered with humorous character.

Glasgow quartet Declan Welsh & the Decadent West have never lacked confidence. Their directly titled sophomore album, 2, showcases the musical chops to match the attitude, even if the lyrics expose chinks in the emotional armour. Welsh proclaims himself King of My Head “at least until I go to bed” with a Simple Minds-like winning combination of the slinky and the rocking. At other times, he raps angrily over the swelling cacophony of Come Outside and produces a sultry vocal turn on the disco-dancey OK Now.

First to Know is the sound of a funky Arab Strap, with beseeching tenor harmony vocals contrasting with the raw drawl of the lead vocal. The tone oscillates from soft to raucous and back across a fluent, varied collection, from the breezy pop funk of Doing Great to living-for-the-weekend paean 100 to 1 (Saturday Night), which is harder to love, like the rowdy crowd at the next table.

East Lothian meets East Nashville on Pictures, a collaboration between Dean Owens, Will Kimbrough & Neilson Hubbard which continues a creative transatlantic roll for Owens. His two recent records with border rockers Calexico were made toe-to-toe; Pictures is more like an Owens’ solo songwriter album with remote finessing from his Nashville buddies.

The results are less outright country, more wistful indie pop, with shades of Roddy Frame and Teenage Fanclub in these charming, unapologetically nostalgic songs, such as the openly autobiographical tribute to mentorship, encouragement and Rocky II that is Boxing Shorts. Pure Magic is infused with delicate woodwind, while the trill of mellow mandolin on Buffalo River betrays a shared love of The Faces.

Orcadian composer Erland Cooper produces a piano version of his recent Folded Landscapes album – the original a collaboration with the Scottish Ensemble recorded in escalating room temperatures as an uncomfortable reminder (for the musicians at least) of the effects of global warming. Divested of strings and vocal samples, this piano suite is sparse but resonant, progressing from Glacial, inspired by the natural echo in the glacial caves of Norway, to the simple clarity of Cold to the more intense but hardly scorching Aflame.