DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid vs. The Freight Elevator Quartet: File Under Futurism

Paul D. Miller, a.k.a. DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, has made his mark dissecting hip hop with the intellectual vigor of someone like John Cage. By approaching sound of all sorts and sources as an instrument in and of itself, he creates aural landscapes that serve as fitting documents of the 20th century's denouement. His music is a mix of cacophony, chaos, beauty, and bliss, like a box of crayons melted down into one multi-hued lump of wax. File Under Futurism is a collaboration with The Freight Elevator Quartet, four wackos from Columbia University's music department. As befits its title, the disc revels in the art of noise, playfully skirting melodies and classical structures. FE4 offers plenty in the way of analog synths, strings, didgeridoos, beats, and effects ready to be manipulated, arranged, and exploded by Spooky, and the results are often haunting. As a work of bricolage, the album does little to distinguish itself from other likeminded experiments, but the project does nearly fulfill the scope of its ambitions. Subliminal Minded is DJ Spooky solo, or as solo as any artist who builds his music on the foundation of others can get. The 30-minute EP perfectly demonstrates Spooky's grasp of sampling, remixing, and other tools of appropriation. Ducking deftly from rap to dub to drum-and-bass, the disc is Spooky's virtuoso vision distilled to an easily digested nugget. While File Under Futurism is more spare and less traditional, Subliminal Minded gives Spooky more to do, and with cameos from Thurston Moore, Kevin Shields, and members of Organized Konfusion, he has more with which to do it.