Excursion with a Park ranger

Linkin Park DJ-rapper Mike Shinoda has been a primary architect of the hip-hop side of that band’s massively popular rap-rock hybrid. He also oversaw the band’s 2002 “Reanimation” remix album with a strong hip-hop undercurrent and last year was a prime mover behind the “Collision Course” Linkin Park/Jay-Z collaborative album.

So why not make a full-on hip-hop album? That’s just what he’s doing, under the name Fort Minor. He’s putting the finishing touches on the album, “The Rising Tied” [sic], for late summer release. And he wants to make it clear that it’s not simply a Linkin Park album without singer Chester Bennington or metal guitars.

“The majority of what I do production-wise and vocally is rap-based,” says Shinoda, 28. “I’m not a rock kid.”

Shinoda played nearly all the instruments and created all the tracks but brought in several hip-hop and urban-music figures to team on vocals and lyrics. Black Thought from the Roots and the duo Styles of Beyond (newly signed to Linkin Park’s Warner Bros.-distributed Machine Shop Records label) join on the song “Right Now,” a cataloging of observations of the world from both a hotel window and from war scenes televised on CNN. Other guests include rapper Common and singer John Legend. Shinoda says this is not just an attempt to jump on hip-hop trends.

“I know there are a lot of preconceived notions of what this will sound like,” he says. “People will assume a million things.” That said, he recruited two prominent advisors for the project: Jay-Z, who is functioning as executive producer, and Linkin Park guitarist Brad Delson, serving in the A&R; capacity for Machine Shop.

“When I was brainstorming with some friends about how to get this album out of the hobby stage into the more serious stage, I realized I wanted some help,” he says. “I can make a lot of different kinds of music. A great punk song? I can do that. A great pop song? I can do that. An indie new wave song? I can do that.

“But I wanted to have a unique sound, consistent from beginning to end. So I called Jay and enlisted his help. He’s the kind of guy who can get involved in that capacity and still let me make the record I want to make. Not a heavy hand, but a great ear. And his role is similar to Brad’s. Jay is more the broad picture thing; Brad is more day-to-day, all the minor details and how we’re going to present it to the world.”

And how will it be presented?

“We’re taking it as a serious hip-hop album,” says Dave Parker, Machine Shop director of marketing. “We’re looking to bring it to a wider audience than just Linkin Park fans, be it urban or the rhythmic format crossover audience.”

Plans are being mapped out, but the introductory process has been initiated, with a few songs being played for hip-hop magazine editors and TV and radio programmers.

“There’s a real appreciation for Linkin Park in the mix show community and among club DJs, especially with ‘Collision Course,’ ” Dave Parker says. “But it doesn’t necessarily fit immediately into their format. This is an opportunity to do that, to give Mike the appreciation at urban radio.”

Erik Parker, Vibe magazine’s music editor, has heard a few songs and thinks Shinoda will find an audience in the hip-hop world. “The fact that Jay-Z is executive producer gives people an opportunity to give this a chance,” he says. “And he does make rap music. It can survive, get attention on its own merits. The Linkin Park and Jay-Z album was still bigger in the Linkin Park sector than hip-hop, but people respect them for what they did.”

There’s a new light on the Dashboard

Hoping to make a career-landmark album, emo-rock leader Dashboard Confessional (a.k.a. Chris Carrabba) has turned to a producer known for career-landmark albums: Daniel Lanois, who worked on U2’s “The Joshua Tree,” Peter Gabriel’s “So,” Emmylou Harris’ “Wrecking Ball” and Bob Dylan’s rejuvenated “Time Out of Mind,” just to name a few.

After some fairly straightforward recordings -- including the last Dashboard album, 2003’s “A Mark, A Mission, A Brand, A Scar,” produced by Gil Norton -- expectations are that the new one will have a distinctly different tone, given Lanois’ reputation for sonic experimentation and lush atmospherics.

“I would be shocked if it didn’t sound different,” says Rich Egan, Dashboard’s manager and co-owner of Vagrant Records, which releases Dashboard’s albums through Interscope Records.

Actually, Interscope chairman Jimmy Iovine presented Lanois as a candidate to produce the last album, but the timing didn’t work out. It also almost didn’t work this time, but when Carrabba scrapped recordings he’d been making for a new album and instead wrote a whole new batch of songs, an opening developed in Lanois’ schedule.

The two met in Jamaica last month to discuss plans and last week reconvened in Toronto to start recording. Work will be finished in May at Lanois’ Los Angeles studio with Carrabba’s whole band joining the sessions. If all goes according to plan, the album will be released in September, with a tour to follow.

“”It’s just Chris and Daniel and an assistant engineer in the studio at this point,” Egan says. “Chris has never sounded so challenged or more into the process of making a record before.”

Small faces

* Afeni Shakur, mother of rapper Tupac Shakur, says that an album of previously released songs by her son due next year will be the final posthumous release. While only four albums came out before he died after being shot in September 1996, 10 have been released since his death, plus various other remix and compilation sets....

* Having worked with Mike Myers as part of the band Ming Tea in the “Austin Powers” movies, the Bangles’ Susannah Hoffs and singer-songwriter Matthew Sweet are working on a duet album of ‘60s flower-pop songs. It’s due in 2006.