For over ten years, Ninja Tune have, with Warp, shaped
the musical landscape of the post-acid generation in
the UK and far beyond. Founded in the first half of
the nineties by Jonathan More and Matt Black, who had,
since the mid eighties sent shockwaves through the effervescent
rave scene as Coldcut since their first release, the
seminal Say Kids, What Time Is It?, known as
the first sample-built record in the UK. After a few
years, the pair finally wrapped up their deal with BMG
in 1993 and went on to better things, putting all their
energy taking their time getting things right. Since,
Ninja Tune has become one of the cleverest and most
credible labels around, with a roaster counting such
big names as DJ Food, Amon Tobin, Mr Scruff, The Herbaliser,
Luke Vibert,
Cinematic Orchestra and, of course, Coldcut.
So, why has it taken them so long to bring a comprehensive
collection of the music they have released so far? Well,
they were too busy scanning the world for more excellent
artists to even think about it, until now. The project
started when chief Ninja Peter Quicke was looking through
old promo videos to collect them into a bumper DVD.
And that’s just what he did, but why stop there
when the label had so much more to offer. The project
naturally developed into collecting not only videos,
but also original recordings and remixes into two double
albums packed to the hilt with gems.
First in line is Zen CD. With a massive 32
tracks spread over two and an half hours of remastered
mayhem and beauty, just because they can afford to splash
out a bit says the press release, this album represents
the best of the Ninja Tune catalogue in all its glory.
Combining big churners such as Coldcut’s Atomic
Moog, Autumn Leaves and More Beats
& Pieces, DJ Vadim’s Terrorit,
Mr Scruff’s Get A Move On, or Cinematic
Orchestra’s All That You Give, with lost
classics such as the stunning Dark Lady from
DJ Food, which opens the first album and sets the…
tune (sorry!) or 9 Lazy 9’s Black Jesus.
Where to start is just impossible to tell. There are
so many goodies on here that it is virtually impossible
to isolate one without doing the others the worst favours
by ignoring them. One can only pick a few to try to
do this album justice, and Autumn Leaves, a
stunning adaptation of the French classic Les Feuilles
Mortes, although not entirely representative of
this wide selection, is definitely one to mention, not
simply because it is disarmingly stunning, but also
because it was Coldcut’s last release for BMG,
pre-empting the rise of Ninja Tune. All the aforementioned
tracks are equally excellent, but failing to mention
Up Bustle & Out’s superbly melancholic Latin
excursion Aqui No Ma, Luke
Vibert’s snotty Get Your Head Down
or the epic All Things To All Men from Cinematic
Orchestra would be criminal. If this album doesn’t
make you dig all your hidden Ninja gems, and Coldcut’s
70 Minutes Of Madness in the process, then
nothing will. In the words of The Herbaliser, this is
something wicked.
If this was not enough, Ninja have put together the
awesome Zen RMX, just to hit the nail on the
head further. Once again, the selection is faultless,
and the combined possee of artists and remixer is even
more impressive, with all the aforementioned augmented
of Fog, East Flatbush Project, Irresistible Force and
2 Player in full confrontation with the like of Squarepusher,
Four Tet,
Cornelius, Dr Rockit (Matthew Herbert), Frédéric
Galliano, Ashley Beedle or Manitba
to name but a few. You can’t namedrop anymore
than this. And the Ninja crew are bloody proud of it
too. One would be forgiven for thinking that they’ve
been dropped in some sort of parallel universe in which
everybody is famous and talented, or more modestly in
a convention of computer wizards. Once again, it seems
rather pointless to highlight anything in particular
as the atmosphere is charged with electric impulses
from start to finish. From the drill’n’jazz
treatment applied by Tom
Jenkinson on DJ Food’s Scratch Yer Head,
and the cut’n’paste fun of Four
Tet’s reworking of Bonobo’s Pick
Up, to the groovy dub Manitoba
remix of Mr Scruff’s Sweetsmoke, the
indie fuck knows what of Fog’s Pneumonia,
kindly reconstructed by Coldcut and the broken All
That You Give, the Cinematic Orchestra classic
revisited by Matthew Herbert, there is plenty to get
your teeth into, and that’s only for CD1. It all
continues with Cinematic Orchestra’s Evolution
2, DJ Food’s Kaleidoscope version of The
Crow, The Herbaliser’s own tongue-in-cheek
remix of Something Wicked, Ashley Beedles’s
sublime reworking of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s Salvation
or the airy Irresistible Force remix of Autumn Leaves.
As for the DVD, well, all we can say is check it out.
If you thought the two albums were more stuffed than
a turkey at Christmas, then think again. Showcasing
Ninja’s involvement in audio visual art pretty
much since the early days and the Stealth parties
at the Blue Note in London, this double length DVD gives
you access to no less than thirty five videos which
you can play in whatever order you like, that is in
the order intended, chronologically or even backward
if you can be arsed. This DVD also lets you check info
about each artist or dig into the label’s record
covers in the way you would meander through a room.
With a selection that encompasses loads of different
genres and styles, from Mr Scruff’s home drawn
Sweetsmoke to the excellent Receiver
from Wagon Christ, courtesy of Fizzy Eye, there is something
for everyone here, but if that wasn’t enough,
the DVD also includes an excellent fifteen minute audiovisual
mix and a thirty minute audio mix from Hexstatic, just
to reiterate that Ninja rocks.
It might have come as no surprise that Ninja Tune have
imperceptible defined and shaped part of the electronic
scene in its loosest form over the last ten years, bringing
some candour and anarchy to the genre, yet these three
consecutive releases re-assert the label’s extreme
diversity and its roster’s excellence. Some may
wonder about some missing tracks here or question the
inclusion of some others, but overall, both CDs and
the DVD provide a fantastic insight into the first decade
or so of Ninja Tune and are ultimately essential listening.
V/A - Zen CD 5/5
V/A - Zen RMX 4.8/5
V/A - Zen TV 4.8/5 |
