Download History. What a great name for this album and artist. It stood out to me straight away anyway because it surprised me that I've not seen it used already, but having now listened to the album, it makes even more sense. This album is pure plunderphonics, or at least I think it is, and so where artists of the past might have spoken about scouring tape collections or vinyl record shops, there's something suitably modern about highlighting where those samples probably came from - the Internet.
At least I think that's what's going on anyway, a lot of these samples sound like they still might have come from tapes and records. They might have been recorded by Download History themselves. Who knows? The important thing is that I needed an opening angle and that's the one I took to get the ball rolling.
This album is great. I'm a big fan of artists like DJ Shadow, The Avalanches, Mr Scruff, and Kid Koala, and Download History seems to be cut from the same cloth. Where this album stands out is that there's a kind of spookiness here. Shadow Passenger is this really downbeat and eerie track with skittering drums and uncomfortable guitar tones, interrupted only by an assault of downtuned guitar samples, where The Cold focused around this gloomy blues riff that has a kind of quiet menace to it.
That's not to say there isn't also a sense of fun to it all, though. Sentimental Interlude has this sickly sweet to the point of manic overdriven synth melody, Fentanyl Flower's duelling honky tonks sound like something straight out of Beck's Odelay album, and the fantastic closer Aaaaah is built around samples of various soul singers aaahing away like there's no tomorrow.
It's really enjoyable stuff, and one I'll likely go back to in time. I'd definitely recommend it for anyone who's into instrumental hip hop.