Various DJ Krush Stepping Stones: The Self-Remixed Best
The most recognizable name in Japanese turntablism is back, this time bearing not strange, new […]
The most recognizable name in Japanese turntablism is back, this time bearing not strange, new fruit but skewed, recombinant soundscapes from a storied career almost two decades deep. And though a remix comp does not a new experiment make, you can cut Krush some slack: Between mixtapes, remixes, and originals, his stream of productions outdistances that of similarly revered turntablists. The structures of atmospheric classics like “Duality,” “Bypath,” and “Kemuri” remain mostly untouched, save for splashes of noise, digital and otherwise. Krush’s intervention is more noticeable on Disc Two, where amped updates of “Only the Strong Survive,” “Meiso,” and “Vision of Art” seriously deviate from the stripped-down sound of their precedents. Some might wish that he threw the fuller flourishes of Stepping Stones onto a new record, but the rest should find this revisionist history a worthwhile introduction to one of the legends of the game.