DJ Krush

At the Commodore Ballroom on Monday, October 4

Although the world teems with indigenous versions of hip-hop--varying wildly from Frankfurt to Cape Town and beyond--Japan's DJ Krush is perhaps the only foreigner who's managed to change the way Americans make rap music. Krush is the godfather of abstract hip-hop, a producer whose penchant for meditative rhythms and sinister atmospheres gave rise to such artists as DJ Shadow, El-P, and their legion of descendants. With such early releases as 1993's Strictly Turntablized and 1995's Meiso, the Tokyo-based boardsman stretched the definition of what hip-hop could be, offering a brooding alternative to the jewel-encrusted excess of commercial rap.

A long-time and fervent proponent of analog gear, Krush did the strangest thing upon taking the Commodore stage last Monday: he cued up his laptop. Where once he vowed he'd never use such tools, the producer has in recent years finally entered the digital age, first using computers on 2002's Shinsou: The Message at the Depth, and subsequently producing the bulk of this year's Jaku on similar equipment. What's perhaps most surprising about this development is how little it has altered the Krush aesthetic; his drums are still soot-dusted, his melodic stabs still startling, his atmospheres still eerie.

If computers have not significantly changed the producer's recordings, the same cannot be said of his live show. With his backing tracks--usually comprised of drums, bass, and a melodic counterpoint--emanating from his laptop, the DJ freed himself up to use both of his turntables to strictly textural effect, pulling his sound into the third dimension with a series of delicately vibrational scratches. Krush is no turntable wizard by today's battle standards, but what he lacks in technical trickery he more than makes up for with compositional acumen, as when he consistently merged clashing sounds--like, say, a plaintive trumpet solo and corroded rave-era synths--to consonant ends.

Rhythmically, too, Krush charted a course all his own, unravelling three-legged breakbeats that dared every dancer to find their own particular groove. A half-hour passed before the DJ laid down his first boom-bap beat, at which point the audience of 700 let out a relieved, rapturous roar. From then on, the floor heaved with each new track.

Nearing the end of the set's first hour--which was comprised of unreleased material drawn from Krush's own private reserve--the producer teased the crowd to climax, speeding a martial rhythm into quintuple time until even the most manic dancers stood still, felled by the snare and hat hits ricocheting wildly through the room.

Over the show's final 30 minutes, the pace slackened as the DJ returned to more familiar ground, playing offerings from his new album. Among these were "Kill Switch" and "Nosferatu", a pair of paint-by-number Krush tracks featuring the canned rhymes of MCs Aesop Rock and Mr. Lif, respectively. The producer closed out his set with Jaku's "Still Island", which, with its liberal use of gentle woodwinds, is perhaps the most Japanese-sounding song he's ever made. Called back to the stage for an encore, the grey-haired selector played DJ Nu-Mark's recent cut-and-pasted version of John Lennon's "Imagine", an apt selection given Nu-Mark's obvious debt to the Krush sound. In our best-case scenario, this is what free trade sounds like.

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