Notice:

Wow, I wrote this more than a year ago in December 2023 and have so many articles that I failed to finally publish because of imminent launch of this site and the complexities of duplication and whatnot. Wow.
– Luke, June 18th, 2025

Shadowy Adventure Tracks

Managed to find the animated album cover artwork:

Do you see the signature of the artist Ron Lesser at the lower edge of the cover? Yessss.

Adventure

After listening to the interview with Zane Lowe about Shadow's story about this album (links below) I, of course, have more insight into its making, but as a result, appreciate it more.

The striking thing that Shadow (Josh Davis) said about this particular release was that it was in the barrel for years during the pandemic, restrictions for in person collaborations made it difficult to …collaborate, like he usually does, so he took some time to make an album that he alone is interested in making, for him.

It’s possible this creates a sort of weird perception in the minds of the fan/listener of the music, possibly even a let down that the album is not what they expected. Sure, I get that. But I (as an artist of a different medium) have been recently thinking a little about "who do you make art for?” Is it for yourself, or others, or both? Or does it even matter?

Labels

In Art, capital A, an artist is encouraged by factors in the world, essentially, to create consistent styles and pieces (again: essentially) so that people can form an opinion and an appreciation for an artist, who's "known" for a particular style. I think that it's part of how the human brain works. Could Van Gogh have made something using the style of Picasso? I mean, possibly. But that just wouldn’t fly, would it? Nowadays, it allows us to say, perhaps, "That's so Warhol!", which helps us to understand a type of art, a type of thing. They're labels, and I imagine that it's how humans gain an understanding, or a shortcut, and allows us to come to grips with concepts and objects in the world without much expensive brain power. Take “Giraffe.” I don't need to hear about the patterns on the giraffe every time I say the word, there's a symbol and representation of a thing, with a word. It allows our brains to skip to parts of life that matter. I think this is what the human brain does.

But it’s a shortcut. It creates a repeatable way for the brain to understand a thing, using these shortcuts, in ways that let us quickly come to grips with our ever changing reality. We don’t actively wonder how to go to the mailbox everyday, we just grab the key and take that elevator or long driveway walk… nearly subconsciously. Our brains are so eager to be efficient.

So, when you listen to this album, if you’ve heard other tracks by him, likely your brain will expect a sound or style, and in same cases create a distaste or enjoyment from it.

In fact, Shadow has mentioned this concept briefly in a live concert about 15 years ago, when he mentioned that he would play the songs that the fans came to hear, despite them being really old songs, because that’s why they paid the ticket price.

I can imagine many artists who perform, performing songs or anything else from decades back in their career and just getting bored with it, because they’d grown and developed a different sense of what’s interesting to them. And so it goes for creators, designers, painters, singers, with a certain amount of recognition or fame…

Struggle

So, in this case, Shadow is exploring his own ideas of the music he wants to make. And why shouldn't he? Will the fans come along for the ride and buy future records, supporting him as an artist? That’s the gamble, the struggle.

The phrase "Struggling Artist" has many layers, it’s rather deep for such a seemingly simple metaphor. There's the financial side, most often, at least for fine artists, but then there's the struggle of passion, interestingness, distraction, fads, trends, new technology, new tactics, oh-look-a-new-sampler, one could imagine Shadow saying… But the struggle is real, and the struggle to keep ones curiousity at bay and do what is expective of you as an artist, of any type, and 'give them what they want', is the part that is most akin to the phrase "selling out".

There's lots to talk about here, but my view is that the good 'selling out' is the version is where you do what you can to make ends meet, all the while doing what you love. The bad kind of 'selling out' would be creating soulless things for fame/fortune.

Striking a balance is golden, and difficult.

If an artist/creator/performer can make a living creating art/dance/music/comedy/etc., that is truly the magic trick.

But imagine being a 65 year old Bono from U2 and performing songs today from the first part of his career when he was 16 years old?

You better create the thing from your heart, playing it 50 years later is hopefully not a painful way to earn a living (I love their album WAR.)

Cover Artwork

The cover artwork for the album is by Ron Lesser, who has created countless artworks for album covers but notably the promotional artwork for the recent movie Atomic Blonde:

Yes, but I managed to find images of the original acrylic and oil paintings for the movie from 2017:

An accomplished professional old-school illustrator and artist has done a vast amount of work in various industries, including movie posters, comics, pulp book covers, and more. Here is his site:

https://artbyronlesser.com/movie-and-television-ads

A new book featuring his illustrations is due for release this year, 2023, and here's the cover for it:

Here is Mr. Lesser on https://www.artsy.net/artist/ron-lesser

Talk about Action Adventure. Great choice, Mr. Shadow.

DJ Shadow on bandcamp:

https://djshadow.bandcamp.com/album/action-adventure

Zane Lowe and DJ Shadow in Apple Music Oct 23, 2023:

https://music.apple.com/us/post/1713228330

Zane Lowe and DJ Shadow podcast Nov 1, 2023:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-zane-lowe-interview-series/id1461515071?i=1000633402456

WhilePlaying:
Ozone Scraper by DJ Shadow

https://music.apple.com/us/album/ozone-scraper/1702336934?i=1702337056