Alice in Shadowland - A Brief History

The Alice in Shadowland mix began life back around 1999-2000 as "Nonstop Service to Wonderland". The mix was originally inteded to be an album of all original music set to the movie Alice in Wonderland. The foundations for the project truly began with the 4th dj erb and White Rabbit Ranch release entitled "PTSD". For reference, you can see a complete list of all the White Rabbit Ranch releases on the FAQ page where the completed "Alice in Shadowland" mix is the White Rabbit Ranch's 53rd full release.

There were two songs on PTSD that were created specifically for the "Nonstop Service to Wonderland" mix. The two songs are "Further Down the Rabbit Hole" and "Nonstop Service to Wonderland". Production standards and recording techniques for the White Rabbit Ranch at that time weren't ideal and as such the whole idea was put to the side for awhile. While the idea itself seemed like it has possibility, the quality of original music just didn't hold up at that time.

A short while later the mix took on a different form and moved away from completely original music to more sample-based original productions and remixes. In this form the mix did start taking shape and around 30 minutes of the mix was completed. Sample cover art was even put together such as this :

At this time, and throughout the history of the mix, there was no plan to initially tell anyone that it went along with the movie Alice in Wonderland. There would be hints to that fact included in the cover art such as above where the train number is the year of release for the movie, the train's destination is Wonderland, and so on. This again was only a quick concept for the cover, but hints like these would've made their way onto whatever the eventual cover would've been.

A number of original samples from DJ Shadow's productions began working their way into the mix. So much so that it became more and more obvious that focusing the entire project on Shadow's work while mixing in other elements was the best way to go. The original "Nonstop Service to Wonderland" mix ended at that time and it morphed into "Alice in Shadowland". However, some of the sections in "Nonstop..." translated almost directly into "Shadowland" such as the introduction during the credits and the Pink Floyd mix that begins around 26 minutes into "Shadowland".

Work on "Shadowland" continued through the years from time to time as more original samples and other material was accrued. DJ Shadow had new releases during this time such as "The Outsider" and new material was continually worked into the mix.

About 75% of "Shadowland" was completed when disaster struck. A complete computer and hard drive crash led to the entire mix being lost. Amazingly while there is a backup drive, for whatever reason all of the "Shadowland" material was not on it. Always make sure to have a backup!

A short time later the first piece of the mix, both the video and audio together, was found on the djerb.net website FTP. It had been placed there to send out a short sample of the mix to gauge interest and get opinions but it had never actually been sent out to anyone. Considering the rest of the mix was gone, it was decided to go ahead and send out this last remnant to some people just for prosperity sake. This was around March of 2010...around 10 years after the original idea was started.

Positive feedback on that initial segment led to reconstructing and finishing the mix. While previous work on the mix had been at a leisurely pace, it now became much more of a sprint to reconstruct the mix while the basic ideas behind each section could still be remembered from memory. Thankfully almost all of the material used in the mix such as the original samples from DJ Shadow did remain intact on the backup drive. The lost sample material was tracked down again and during the process of reconstructing the mix the remaining 25% or so that had never been completed was nailed down as well. Incredibly through a borderline obsessive work habit to finally get "Shadowland" done, the final mix was completed only 3 months later on May 27, 2010.

In the end the hard drive failure may have been a blessing in disguise as it finally pushed the project to actually get finished. But of course as I believe DJ Shadow has also said - songs and mixes are never really finished, you just stop working on them. And after 10+ years I finally stopped working on "Alice in Shadowland". It's been a long labor of love and I truly hope you enjoy the mix!

dj erb