Music: Shadow's One-Man Band

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Obscurity has its virtues. While most DJs use vaguely familiar samples to get a nod of recognition from their listeners, Davis finds familiarity a distraction. On Six Days, one of The Private Press's best tracks, he uses a vocal about the horrors of war from what sounds like a brassy female jazz singer. It's actually a Liverpudlian male psychedelic group from the early '70s sped up to match the song's tempo. If it were, say, Shirley Bassey, the effect would be sabotaged by kitsch. Instead, it's haunting.

The most pointed criticism of Davis is that his creativity, like that of Robert Rauschenberg (another pop collagist), is invested in process rather than results. Listen to his music casually, and you wonder: What does DJ Shadow have to say for himself? But focus on the voices he chooses to speak for him on The Private Press: there's the woman dictating a letter home, the giddy record collector discussing his tape collection, a kid asking to be told a story, the egoist who declares, "And now...eternity!" as somber keys take him away to some sad netherworld. Not everyone will have the time or patience, but those who give Davis close attention will discover his secret: he turns technology into humanity, and you can dance to it.