In Scratch, a documentary that traces the history of the hip hop DJ and that screened at last year's Melbourne Film Festival, Davis is interviewed in the basement of his favourite record store, dwarfed by floor-to-ceiling stacks of vintage vinyl he describes the spot as his "little nirvana". He spends his down time "digging" for new source material in second-hand record stores. Nevertheless, with a record collection so expansive - numbering hundreds of thousands - that he has to hire storage units to keep it in, it's safe to say that Davis is an obsessive. But, for some reason, someone who practises DJing is." I don't think someone who practises the violin for eight hours a day is considered a pathetic case.
Does that make them a sad, pathetic case? Maybe, but that's their job. "If you're a lawyer, you would spend time in a law library. "To me, it's just knowing your craft," he explains. "I'm painted as being some kind of freak," he moans, taking exception to one particular article that suggested his addiction to collecting records marked him out as a "trainspotter". The night before our interview, he made the mistake of reading some of his own press, making him even more sensitive to interrogation. Caught at the tail-end of a short European tour, Davis is by his own admission not on top form.
Multi-faceted and powered by torrents of emotion, his music pitches ponderous piano chords steeped in melancholy against the steady pounding of drums. Although DJ Shadow (real name Josh Davis) is never less than genial, listening to his records will tell you more than talking to him ever would. The reclusive hip hop legend DJ Shadow could hardly have chosen a more appropriate title for his first solo album in six years than The Private Press, named after custom-made vanity records popular in the '50s and '60s.
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