Psyence Fiction

Years before Gorillaz made the art-cartoon all-star hip-hop-inflected-post-genre showcase a big deal, Mo’ Wax founder/trip-hop tastemaker James Lavelle and his label’s hottest auteur DJ Shadow dropped this breathlessly hyped project to a public reaction somewhere between reserved praise and bewildered disappointment. But while its creators might’ve had a hunch it was a potential clusterfuck in the making — the album’s “Main Title Theme” drops in a quote from Francis Ford Coppola discussing the insane toil of making the notoriously fraught and over-budget Apocalypse Now — the fact that Psyence Fiction fell short of everyone’s unrealistic expectations back in ’98 tends to obscure how visionary its best moments really sound. This is, after all, an album that opens with Kool G. Rap spitting street-rap/Scorsese-flick threats over doomy laser-riddled space-opera boom-bap (“Guns Blazing (Drums of Death Part 1)”) and closes on Thom Yorke embodying vulnerably anxious fears of mortality over funereal soul-jazz (“Rabbit in Your Headlights”). And there’s so much room between those points that UNKLE’s efforts to fill that space seems a bit struck by the paralysis of choice: Lavelle’s connections brought in everyone from the Verve’s Richard Ashcroft (the epic orchestral-rock dramaturgy of “Lonely Soul”) to the Beastie Boys’ Mike D (goofily promising to make listeners feel “nice and complete like a Hap-py Meal” on “The Knock (Drums Of Death Part 2)”). Shadow was left to build around this sprawling itinerary — which, overstretched ambition notwithstanding, still resulted in a handful of his finest beats (“Rabbit”; “Unreal”) and at least one unlikely moment where trip-hop actually sounded like it could outclass rock on rock’s own terms (“Nursery Rhyme / Breather”). The partnership wouldn’t last, and Lavelle’s guidance couldn’t coax anything this good out of the UNKLE braintrust again without Shadow, making Psyence Fiction a singularly fascinating fiasco bursting with unresolved promise.