'The Mo' Wax Singles, 1993-1997' Box Set with Exclusive Signed Print - NOW AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER

 

Zoom! Like the streak of a shooting star or the time it takes to bat an eyelash. That’s how recent the ‘90s still feels to me. And yet, the “newest” offering in the box set is nearly thirty years old, and the last time any of these singles were reissued legitimately, Mo’ Wax was still a label on the ascent. Most of them predate iTunes, and exist chaotically (if at all) on DSPs. Clearly, I’m long overdue to clean up my pre-album and non-album catalog and present anew the seven original singles released during Mo’ Wax’s heyday. This box set is intended to do exactly that, and more.

I was inspired by the satisfying and painstaking process applied to the 25th Anniversary Endtroducing..... release from 2021, and began to ask myself: “Why stop there? Ideally, shouldn’t ALL of my music from the Mo’ Wax era be given the same treatment?” So, out came the original DAT tapes, in some cases so aged and fragile that multiple machines were needed to obtain a successful transfer of the music they contained. Once the original pre-masters were identified, the files were sent to Miles Showell at Abbey Road for remastering- not to satisfy the volume wars, but for the purpose of retaining clarity and dynamic range, the end result being a much more uniform listening experience.

On streaming services, my intention is to present, for the first time, the singles as they were released. Not merely part of the Preemptive Strike compilation as several of the songs are, but on their own, with the original B-sides and artwork. The vinyl box set, meanwhile, presents an opportunity to do something altogether different.

With many of the graphic elements sadly lost to the wind, I had no interest in trying to mimic or reconstruct the original art. In fact, I decided to reimagine the singles from top to bottom. In going through the master tapes, many of which I hadn’t heard since the ‘90s, I realized that there were still new stories worth telling. For example, the version of “High Noon” everybody knows was actually a self-remix, done at the insistence of my friend Osman Eralp who ran A&M and felt that the drums were “too up front.” What better time than now to present my original intended master mix? Ditto the versions of “What Does Your Soul Look Like,” presented here as individual tracks rather than threaded together via the interludes made for the EP. The fully intact originals are still widely available, but these “standalone” versions have never been heard until now.

In all, roughly half of the songs presented on the box set appear in previously unreleased form, either as an alternate mix or edit, or in the case of the eighth disc in the series, primitive demos which represent literally my first ever bounces from MPC to DAT; the “proofs of concept,” so to speak.

This box wasn’t made for the casual listener, it was made with the hardcore fan in mind. I’ve always felt, if something is worth doing, it’s worth doing right, and every step of the process was made with this philosophy firmly in mind. I had fun locating and resurrecting these songs, some of which still feel close to my consciousness as though they were made yesterday.

-DJ Shadow, December, 2025