what a difference a difference can make (DJ Krush remixes DJ Krush)

"What a difference a difference can make."

-- DJ Krush featuring Company Flow: "Vision of Art"

As promised, here's my DJ Krush follow-up post focusing on his Stepping Stones album released last month. The new album features Krush (born Hideaki Ishii) remixing tracks from his entire catalogue. While he's merely tinkered with a few tracks, most of the pieces, especially those featuring guest rappers and singers, are radically reworked -- Krush just started over, constructing entirely new music around the original vocals.

Stepping Stones is a 2 CD set: the first disc, Lyricism, finds Krush revisiting past collaborations with rappers Mos Def, Mr. Lif, Aesop Rock, Company Flow, and The Roots' Black Thought, as wells as vocalists Zap Mama and Esthero. The second disc, Soundscapes, features Krush reworking some of his experimental, instrumental hip hop gems, a few of which were done in collaboration with the likes of DJ Shadow, pianist Ken Shima, and master drummer ?questlove from the Roots. As for the difference between working with rappers and creating instrumental tracks, here's what Krush said in a 2001 interview:

When I collaborate with rappers, I look at it like a swimming pool. I build the pool, I put water in the pool but I have someone else jump in it and swim. With the instrumentals, it’s all me. I build the pool, I put water in it and I swim in it so how I go about making those two different types of tracks is different. With the instrumentals, it’s not a concept per-say, but it is a picture in my head that I want to express so they are basically trying to have a picture and wonder what that picture would sound like.

Here's a taste of the Lyricsm disc: Krush's "Silent Gun" remix of "Meiso," featuring The Roots' Black Thought and Malik B. And here's a clip of Krush's new "Piano Mix" of "Final Home," featuring Esthero. It's more stripped down and sparse than the versions on Kakusei and Zen, but to my ears more effectively conveys the stark beauty of Esthero's voice and lyrics ("I want you to be addicted to me").

Meiso (Silent Gun Remix) -- DJ Krush feat. Black Thought and Malik B.

And here's a taste of a couple tracks from Soundscapes. Starting with the "Raindrops" remix of "Stormy Clouds." It's one of the more jazz focused tracks on the collection. Of course Krush is known for infusing much of his work with a jazz vibe and sensibility, or for collaborating with jazz musicians on tracks or entire albums (see Ki-Oku, Krush's project with avant garde jazz trumpeter Toshinori Kondo). And while Krush throws jazz sample snippets or loops into many of his mixes, the jazz influence goes far beyond that: "with jazz there are lots of things you can learn and achieve through its sense of freedom and improvisation. More than through the actual sound it has. Jazz, to me, is more of an attitude thing." And least anyone forget how amazingly gifted a turntablist Krush is, check his radically reworked, old school breakbeat and drum 'n' bass grounded, "Duck Chase" (originally from Zen).

Stormy Cloud (Raindrops Mix) -- DJ Krush feat. Ken Shima

Duck Chase (Double-up Mix) (edit) -- DJ Krush feat. PhonopsychographDISK

Soundscapes includes a new mix of "Duality," his 1996 collaboration with DJ Shadow from Meiso. I'll leave you with this thought Krush relayed to an interviewer in 1997 about the original version:

On "Duality," the track I did with DJ Shadow, I strongly believe that both of us were able to use our turntables as microphones and to 'speak' with our hands. Just like rappers, DJs also have something to say and I wanted to see how well I could deliver a message or an image in my mind just by sound. As a result of this album and especially the track with Shadow, I now think that such a thing is definitely possible and I've opened up a whole range of 'DJ music' possibilities for myself to explore.

If you don't own any Krush, this is a good place to start. And if you have most of his albums, you'll want to add these remixes and reformulations your collection. Buy Stepping Stones and other DJ Krush albums here from Underground Hip Hop.
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