Reaching Up To The Stars

DJ Shadow featuring Yukimi Nagano “Scale It Back”

I recently interviewed DJ Shadow for a Rolling Stone video thing. At some point in our conversation, I made a point of asking him about this song. At the time we talked, I had the record but not any liner notes, so I was curious as to how much of this composition was made up of live instrumentation. By his reckoning, this track is about 90% samples pulled from a variety of sources. This sort of blows my mind, but it really shouldn’t – a lot of his best work comes out of this incredible ability to take bits and pieces from all over the place and making it sound like a live, organic performance. “Scale It Back” truly sounds like an excellent band playing live in a room, with Little Dragon’s Yukimi Nagano right there with them, turning in what could be the best vocal performance of her career to date. Even aside from pulling off this incredible compositional/production trick, there’s something really magical about the sound of this song. It’s low key but overwhelmingly romantic – there’s this sort of sinking feeling to it. It makes you feel as though you’re literally falling in love.

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