Founder of record label Mo Wax records, James Lavelle, and DJ Shadow are the names behind the project UNKLE that was born in 1994. The album I am about to throwback to is their debut Psyence Fiction. I am going to keep it short and sweet, which is all contrary to what this album represents.
After DJ Shadow's album Entroducing that changed the music scene forever, fervent lovers of this sound were impatiently waiting for the collaborative effort of UNKLE. At the time, Lavelle was known for remixing tapes for Beck, Radiohead, and The Verve. The album itself teased collaborations with Thom York, Richard Aschroft and Mike D. DJ Shadow is responsible for all arrangements and interpretations on the album, while Lavelle was signed as a co-producer. Contrary to expectations, Psyence Fiction did not explode with emission of all of their supernova guest stars. Far from saying that this was a mediocre album. On the contrary. The album was a mosaic of hip hop, rock n roll, hard beats and breaks. Movie-like themes switch from hip hop style with DJ Shadow's unavoidable scratch sequences, to Richard Aschroft's typical British vocal in Lonely Soul to that dubs over drum n bass matrix for nine whole minutes.
Unreal was an instrumental version of the song Be There that came out as a single with Ian Brown a year later. Rabbit In The Headlights had a responsibility to slowly brings the record to its sensitive closure, and what better way to render a sensitive closure than to invite Thom Yorke. Radiohead's singer is silently singing over piano solo and almost undetectable rhythm in the background, until a track reaches a crescendo that sounds like a storm below the airplane.
Psyence Fiction was, and still, is an evidence of what we can expect from duo Lavelle and DJ Shadow. Variety of themes and depth of their performances made UNKLE one of the most respected alternative acts of that era. Twenty years after their first collaboration, I am yearning for their new material like a digital nomad is yearning for the food from his country.
