When DJ Shadow released his first album, "Endtroducing," in 1996, sample-based music was mostly complementary, designed for MCs or parties, and wasn't generally accepted as a viable creative endeavor by itself. It wouldn't be fair to all the turntablists who inspired Shadow (Josh Davis) to say that "Endtroducing" was the first sample-based album that mattered, but it's impossible to deny its watershed status. "Endtroducing" described a full emotional landscape. It was greater, and deeper, than the sum of its parts.
It was also experimental. The challenge was to create entirely new music out of aural effluvia. Since then, sample-based music has moved out of hip-hop's basement and into the larger world. Artists like The Avalanches have taken it to the next level. Shadow has said his new album, "The Private Press," reflects the evolution of turntablism as a genre, but what it represents sonically is the substantiation of a truly personal style.
Opening and closing with actual "Letters From Home," the new record establishes parameters that are more deliberate than those which characterized the random-sounding "Endtroducing" (the entr'actes were called "Transmissions": radio signals picked up accidentally). Shadow is now creating real songs, with identifiable themes.