Brainfreeze (album)

Soul
sound collage

Brainfreeze was recorded by DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist as a practice session for a show in February 1999 at the Future Primitive Soundsession in San Francisco, mixing funk and soul 45's. Initially 1000 copies were made and sold at the shows, and a further 1000 copies were made and distributed to local records stores in California and sold out very quickly. A cease and desist letter from 7 Eleven convenience stores—the whole artwork and styling was based on their logos and uniforms—meant that they stopped and moved on. The album was then bootlegged and it can now be found in popular record shops. DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist toured their Brainfreeze performance initially as part of Shadow's International Goodwill Tour in 1999, on January 18, 2000, they reunited to perform a farewell to the Brainfreeze shows at the El Rey Theatre in Los Angeles. This final show was later released on VHS as Freeze, and includes footage of rehearsals as well. This set was reenacted at the Mayan night club in Los Angeles on May 25, 2006, as part of a benefit concert for DJ Shadow's art director, Keith Tamashiro, in order to offset costs related to a brain aneurysm he suffered early in 2006. Brainfreeze was followed up by Product Placement, an album of similar content and style.

While there was no tracklisting given except for some record shots in the inner sleeves, Michael "DOP" Lane put together listing of the tracks and website listings. While this has been repeatedly bootlegged, the main difference between the original pressing and the bootlegs are the quality of the sleeves and the CD (colors look washed out and not as sharp on the bootleg). The original CD on the inner ring has ©1999 Sixty7 Recordings written in red on a clear background. The bootleg does not have a clear bit. On the back of the CD is Disc Producers inc 2886/Brainfreeze ADC/CA. Some bootlegs have "Slurp CD 001" and a bar code written on them. and Brainfreeze Breaks, which feature the songs in unmixed form.