Hear This

Not many foreign rap artists find their way to American ears -- and even fewer hang around for a decade. But against all odds, Japan's DJ Krush is closing in on the 10-year mark with his seventh proper album, Shinsou: The Message at the Depth.

Details

With Anticon's Alias and Jel

Thursday, Feb. 20

TophOne and J-Boogie open at 9 p.m.

Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door

626-1409

DNA Lounge, 375 11th St. (at Folsom), S.F.
www.dnalounge.com

Related Content

• Weekend Party Preview: Dirtybird, Tiger & Woods, The Rapture, and More
  October 6, 2011
• Thirteen Lesser-Known Artists You Should See at Outside Lands 2011
  August 10, 2011
• Lazer Sword: Show Preview
  August 25, 2010
• tUnE-yArDs' Merrill Garbus on Her Creative Philosophy, Finding Inspiration in the Bay, and the Wisdom of Steve Jobs
  November 21, 2011
• DJ Excel on His Mixtape History, and Why Top 40 Clubs Suck
  August 4, 2011

More About

• DJ Krush
• Tariq "Black Thought" Trotter
• Questlove
• Underground Hip-Hop
• Hip-Hop and Rap

Like this Story?

Sign up for the Music Newsletter: Keep your thumb on the local music scene with music features, additional online music listings and show picks. We'll also send special ticket offers and music promotions available only to our Music Newsletter subscribers.

Privacy Policy Cancel Continue

Krush's 1994 long-player, Strictly Turntablized, helped put U.K. label Mo' Wax on the map, solidifying the concept of "abstract" instrumental hip hop with a collection of sparse grooves, cut-up horn lines, and soulful grunts. Most so-called "trip hop" never moved beyond that template, but on subsequent releases -- particularly 1999's Kakuseiand 2001's Zen -- Krush kept experimenting, thinning his arrangements down before fattening them up with eclectic guest vocalists like Black Thought, Zap Mama, Company Flow, and the Roots' ?uestlove. Shinsou continues in this collaborative vein, with Anti-Pop Consortium, members of Oakland's Anticon collective, and local up-and-comer Opus bringing their own styles to bear. And for purists, there's Japanese MC Inden rapping in his native tongue on "Toki No Tabiji," his gritty, aggro flow the perfect complement to Krush's fractured sound design.

Reflecting the diversity of its players, Shinsou is Krush's most sonically inventive record to date. Leaving behind the lackadaisical jazz cannibalism of his early years, the producer sticks mostly to hyperprocessed synthetic sounds, energizing his tunes with shuddering drum 'n' bass cadences, choppy percussive pileups, and off-kilter rhythms.

As a live performer, the jock's selections are as unpredictable as the jagged edges of his own productions. Pulling together classic rap, golden-age roots reggae, ambient drum 'n' bass, and advanced electronica, Krush leaves just enough splinters to prick up your ears.