DJ Spooky

There is a sweet balance of the sonic and the discursive on Subliminal Minded, an EP of tracks and interludes remixed from Spooky’s last solo album, Riddim Warfare. His intellectual musings are obvious on titles like “Dialectical Transformation III” and “Journey Anagramme Oulippienne,” but they’re more deeply felt in the deconstruction of black Atlantic genres (ska, dub, funk, jazz, hip-hop and drum & bass) within the tracks. Where those styles traditionally place emphasis on the sensuality of the body, Spooky shuffles the rhythms up and shifts our perspectives towards the inner life of the mind. “Grapheme: Ghetto of the Mind” is an endless reiteration of the title’s latter half, warped and juxtaposed with erratic cut-ups of a hard bop drummer wrecking the kit. His introspection is less erratic on “Rapper’s Relight,” where he and Kevin Shields reverse the flow of a classic ’70s groove into more psychedelic streams. Similarly, remixer Karsh Kale finds “Peace In Zaire” with his tabla and lighter breaks to go. There are other remixes of that track, featuring DJ Wally and the Dub Pistols, that not only take the original into other directions, but also work like pure dance music, albeit with a more abrasive edge.