VARIOUS ARTISTS
Ninja Tune XX: 20 Years Of Beats And Pieces
ZEN160X
Ninja Tune 2010
101 Tracks. 486mins00secs

It is probably not a coincidence that two of the major UK labels to have emerged from the rave era, Warp and Ninja Tune, are celebrating their twentieth anniversary within less than a year, testament that, if for many only a fleeting movement, it proved, for the most dedicated and visionary artists and labels, the most perfect of launchpads. Following last year’s Warp celebrations, it is now the turn of Ninja Tune to reach this milestone and look back upon its defining years.

Founded by Coldcut’s Matt Black and Jon More in 1990, the label rapidly established a solid roster around the likes of DJ Food, Kid Koala, The Herbaliser, DJ Vadim, The Cinematic Orchestra or Amon Tobin. While shaping the post rave electronic landscape, the paths followed by Warp and Ninja Tune rapidly diverged. The former remained close to the blend of acid house, Detroit techno and industrial ethic which had shaped its early years, Ninja Tune opted for a resolutely more eclectic sound, incorporating heavy doses of hip-hop and drum’n’bass into its expanding catalogue. Since, this has extended in many more directions, and the label has spawned a number of sister labels (the now defunct Ntone, which operated between 1997 and 2001, the positively alive and kicking hip-hop centric Big Dada, active since 1997, which housed a Mercury Prize winner with Speech Debelle last year, and the more recent rock-focused Counter Records). For its twentieth anniversary, Ninja Tune have collected an impressive number of exclusive tracks and remixes into a superb limited edition 6-CD box set, which also contains a handful of totally exclusive seven inches. There are also two double CDs available, containing part of the selection from the box set, and a book to complete the package.

The guest list for this set of celebratory releases is nothing short of impressive, encompassing everything and everyone from staple artists (Coldcut, Amon Tobin,  DJ Food, Roots Manuva, Hexstatic, Jaga Jazzist, DJ Vadim, Daedelus, The Herbaliser, Mr Scruff, Bonobo, Wagon Christ, Fink) to more recent addition (Grasscut, Speech Debelle, Eskmo, The Bug, Antipop Consortium, The Death Set) to name just a fraction, and this list is further enriched by the sheer number of remixes from both in-house artists and external contributors. Amongst those can be spotted the likes of Four Tet, Hot Chip, Prefuse 73, 808 State, Autechre, Flying Lotus, Tom Middleton, Rustie, Metronomy, Scuba, Mark Pritchard and Tunng. Instead of opting for some chronological or stylistic order, the compilers went for general trends in moods, loosely arranging titles so the tone of a section never settles for long, creating an interesting ebb and flow of varied beats and sounds, while also alternating between vocal and instrumental tracks. Predictably, there is quite a strong emphasis on hip-hop infused beats and grooves, but this is punctuated by more delicate moments, at times rather soulful (highlights include Emika’s Double Edge, Flying Lotus’s remix of Andreya Triana’s Lost Where I Belong, Bonobo’s Sun Will Rise with Speech Debelle or the truly superb Tomorrow by  Jono McCleery and Post Suite by Floating Points Ensemble), at others lush and electronic (Diplo’s remix of his own Summer’s Gonna Hurt You, Dan Le Sac’s bleepy feast remix of PRDCTV’s Metropolis, Amon Tobin’s haunting Lost & Found), or, more occasionally, pop-tinted (Grasscut’s Blink In The Night or the collaboration between Lou Rhodes and The Cinematic Orchestra on One Good Thing). This seemingly chaotic labyrinth of genres is actually somewhat very representative of how the label has functioned until now, seemingly driven not so much by any master plan as by a true determination to release anything that catches the ear of the Ninja crew.

With such a far-reaching selection both in size and scope, it is virtually impossible to isolate any particular track, and although there are a handful of Ninja classics amongst the selection, it is clear that presenting a simple retrospective was never in the intention of the label with these releases. Instead, Ninja Tune XX, either in its double CD configuration or full box set extent, collects an incredibly vast array of previously unreleased material, some of which having possibly been lying unheard for years, others entirely new and specially commissioned for the event, and spanning, in the case of the box set, over eight hours of music.

Also included in the box set is a hard back version of Stevie Chick’s book Ninja Tune: 20 Years Of Beats And Pieces, a paperback version of which is available to buy separately. The book retraces the history of the label through am impressive collection of photos, promotional material, record covers and memorabilia, lavishly presented and articulated around a series of chapters retracing the rise of the label, the influence of DJs and of Coldcut’s infamous Solid Steel sessions, the birth of Big Dada and how the label has continued to evolve, together with a selection of twenty one classic albums, ranging from Funki Porcini’s Hed Phone Sex (1995), Amon Tobin’s Permutation (1998) and DJ Vadim’s USSR: Life From The Other Side (1999) to cLOUDDEAD’s seminal self-titled album (2001), The Bug’s London Zoo (2008) and Jaga Jazzist’s One-Armed Bandit, released earlier this year, making it a perfect companion to the music on offer.

5/5

Ninja Tune | Ninja Tune XX
Box Set: Amazon UK: CD US: CD Boomkat: CD
Ninja Tune XX Vol. 1: Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD Boomkat: CD | DLD iTunes: DLD
Ninja Tune XX Vol. 2: Amazon UK: CD | DLD US: CD Boomkat: CD iTunes: DLD
Ninja Tune XX Book: Amazon UK: BK US: BK
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One-Armed Bandit is the first release from Norwegian supergroup Jaga Jazzist in over five years. A constantly changing formation, the band has been around for fifteen years, with at its core brothers Lars and Martin Horntveth and their sister Line. While their sound has always encompassed a variety of genres, it relies primarily on a driven form of power jazz. With their last record to date, the band took to more rock structures and abandoned the electronic textures that had characterised previous releases. With this latest offering, they once again bring electronics into the fold and swap heavy rock forms for more cosmic prog rock. Here, band composer in chief Lars Horntveth talks about the five year break, how working on external projects benefit the band as a whole, working with Tortoise’s John McEntire and spending over half his life with the band.

After a five year hiatus, Jaga Jazzist are back in action and ready to release a new album, One-Armed Bandit, and embark on a European tour. Why did you decide to take a break, and how did you know it was the right time for the band to get record together. Was there some kind of common decision, or was more of an organic and natural process?
After our last album, What We Must, and the tour that followed, three of our band members quit. The rest of the band was very tired after so much touring that year. We decided to take a break that would make it possible for everyone in the band to work with other bands and earn some money. Being a ten-piece band is very hard economically and is why all Jaga-members have worked for no money the last fifteen years. It’s crazy, but we have so much outcome that it’s almost impossible to make things work economically. About three years into the break we started talking about working with Jaga again. I think everyone in the band feels that Jaga is the mother ship in a way and we always have the best times with the band. It felt like everyone wanted to start up again and had the energy to do so. That was after the release of several solo albums, band albums and lots of producing/arranging/playing on other peoples albums.

We needed a new keyboard player and a new guitarist. These are in my opinion the most important roles in Jaga, aside from the drums. It’s very hard to find people that have the taste and musicianship we are looking for, but we found them in Øystein Moen and Stian Westerhus, both from the noise band Puma. We started out working on new songs in a house a couple of hours’ drive into the Swedish forest. We stayed there for a week and combined barbeque and new prog-rock songs. A great week.

According to the press release, you started writing for the album in 2008, but like on previous Jaga albums, there seem to be a big involvement of the rest of the band in the music. Can you tell us more about how the album came together, how the band the involved in the composition process, and also what role the music of Fela Kuti played in the writing of this particular album?
This time, I wrote everything down on music sheets. We haven’t worked like this for a long time. I had lots of ideas, many of them were quite hard to put in practice and play and we needed to rehearse more than ever before. We worked like that during autumn 2008, rehearsing maybe once a week or more. I tried to have a new song ready every week which put a lot of pressure on me. I think it was hard for everyone to see in what direction we were going, because there was so much focus on getting the right notes in, but this method of working really paid off. When we went into the studio, everyone had the songs under their skin and therefore could play the parts and switch instruments and be creative in a very good way. So it was in the studio that everyone contributed and really put their personality into it. Also, drums and drum programming are very important in Jaga, and Martin is the brain behind that.

Fela Kuti is one of many vague influences on this album. I tried to make a song that resembled some of the feeling I got when listening to him. But I don’t know if anyone would have thought about him if I hadn’t mentioned his influence.

Was it a similar writing process to that followed with previous records?
No, we worked on What We Must entirely without music sheets. We rehearsed the songs based on my demos and just playing by ear, so it was quite the opposite.

The last album showed a move towards a rockier sound, but One-Armed Bandit is much gentler and eclectic record. Was it a conscious shift?
Absolutely eclectic, but it was not intended to sound gentler at all. Actually we were thinking of XTRMNTR by Primal Scream while making it. I wanted the sounds to be really intense and organic. But as always with Jaga, we kind of follow our gut feeling and the albums turn out really different from what our references and influences may have been. And that includes Fela Kuti as well. I was listening to his records while writing the song One-Armed Bandit, but the way the song turned out, I am not sure Fela Kuti is the first thing you think of. Our previous album, What We Must, was, as you said, rockier and a little bit more basic. It also didn’t have any programming at all. The new album has many more layers and leans more toward prog-rock. We have included more electronics and programming and also used the horns differently. On this album, the horns are much more dynamic. I think that some songs, like Toccata, One-Armed Bandit and Prognissekongen, represent a new direction for Jaga, while others are very much a continuation of what we have been doing in the last ten years.

The album was mixed in Chicago by John McEntire. How did you get to work with him, and what would you say he brought to the album?
I got his email through a press agent that has both worked for me and McEntire in the States. I emailed him the rough mixes and he responded very quickly that it was something he was enthusiastic about doing. He knew the band a little from before, we played a gig with Tortoise in Oslo in 2003. I think the most important thing for us was that we knew we shared a lot of tastes and influences musically. So it would be easy to talk to each other and work fast during the mix. But mixing a Jaga album must be hard. I guess 150 to 200 tracks on ever song. So it’s important that we are there to say what is the focus of the song and what are the less important details. Since McEntire was doing the mix and not producing, we didn’t expect him to go wild and try to change everything. But he added a lot of cool sounds. For instance, we put drums and horns through his wall of synthesizers and stuff like that. A great guy and a very good experience for us.

Are you apprehensive about how the album is going to be received, both in Norway and in the rest of Europe, after so long?
The response so far has been great. Great reviews and massive response on the live gigs we have played so far. I have a really good feeling. I think the music that we make is not part of any particular trend or anything, so it doesn’t matter that much when the album is released. It really doesn’t feel like we are old news. It seems like quite a lot of people have been waiting for a new album from us. But I hope we can take this band to a new level this time. The more attention we get, the more we can go out and play live which we really love.

The title track of the new album was made available for free on the web a few weeks ago, and more recently, Toccata was too. Was it the band’s choice to do so, and, as this is a process that is becoming more common, do you think it actually benefits album sales further down the line?
These tracks are shorter versions of the songs and just teasers for the album. It was a choice shared by the record company and us to release these ‘singles’ for free. It’s not easy to get this kind of music on the radio so I think it’s a good thing to use the internet to create a buzz before the album gets released. Hopefully, our audience are aware that the Jaga music is all about the album format. The general record sales have gone down so drastically since we released our previous album. I hope these teasers will make people buy the album and support the band.

The band features two new members, Øystein Moen (keyboards) and Stian Westerhus (guitar), and there have been a few changes in the line-up over the years. Do you see this as a part of what Jaga is, and as a way to renew yourselves? How did you meet these new guys, and how do you choose new members to join the band?
Jaga has always had some change in personnel, but not as much as it might seem. There are still six of the original members. But we’ve had some changes and most of the time it has been for the better. Something happens with the group dynamic and often makes us go in a new direction. The hard part is to find new members who understand that the band is very collective. It always takes some time to rehearse with new members and get them to get what we are about, especially when it comes to taste in sounds and production. With Øystein and Stian, we heard them play a gig with their noise band Puma and thought that they had the right attitude in music. But it was a long way for them to come from totally improvised music to something very structured like we do. It turned out good though. Ironically, Stian had to quit the band this summer because he has too much stuff going on, so now we have a new guitar player. The story continues.

You have all worked on various other projects beside Jaga, including solo projects. Does it affect or transpire into the band in any way?
Absolutely. I think it is very important for everyone to have other projects. It makes it easier for us to work in one direction and not try to include everyone’s needs all the time. The egos are fulfilled with the solo projects. It also works as inspiration for the band. We do so much stuff on the side and it inspires us to make different music.

Jaga Jazzist has been around as a band for over fifteen years, but One-Armed Bandit is only your sixth album. Why haven’t there been any more records?
It’s very much got to do with the previous question. We need some time between each record to do other stuff. The time between the records really helps us find new directions.  We are very active on the Norwegian music scene. I don’t know the exact number, but we must have been involved in around 2-300 records, as musicians, producers or arrangers. We are not exactly lazy.

You are due to play live across Europe this winter and spring. What can people expect of Jaga on stage this time round?
I think we are better as a live band than ever now, the energy is really high. We really look forward to play our new material and meet the audience. And the stage is filled with even more instruments of course.

You were not even fifteen when you started Jaga Jazzist. Did you ever imagine that it would last this long? Is it a bit of a surprise to still be around with the band now?
I didn’t expect that much when we started; it was more like an experiment. Now I have been in the band for over half of my life. It’s very much a family thing for everyone involved. We have worked idealistically for over fifteen years and it’s been all about the music. It’s been very hard at times, but also very rewarding musically. I think we have worked up something special, and it makes it hard to let go. Musically, I think we have so much more that we can do. There are so many ways to go with this type of bands as long as we try to expand our influences and learn new instruments.
It’s strange that we have made it work for such a long time. I don’t have that much fun with any other band musically speaking.

Did you already have a strong idea of the kind of sound you wanted to achieve back then?
No, not really. We were doing a lot of different stuff in the beginning. Our first record is very schizophrenic: rap, avant-garde, gipsy music, contemporary jazz, soul etc. It wasn’t until A Livingroom Hush that we really felt we had something that had a direction that we wanted to follow up.

You are highly successful and recognised in Norway and have been for years, but it took a little longer to gain recognition abroad, after you signed to Smalltown Supersound and consequently were licensed to Ninja Tune. How did you get to work with Smalltown Supersound?
I think we met Joakim Haugland of Smalltown Supersound in 2000. He had just released Kim Hiorthøy’s Hei. He first released an EP with Martin Horntveth and they became friends. A Livingroom Hush was a huge success in Norway, selling almost twenty thousand records at the time, but nothing was happening outside Norway. Smalltown released it, and six months later Ninja Tune wanted to re-release it and do some more albums. Smalltown Supersound have been very important for both Jaga and us as solo artists.

You have released two albums in between Jaga records, including Kaleidoscope last year, which consisted of just one piece and was recorded with the Latvian National Orchestra. That was a very different project to your work with Jaga. Was working with a full orchestra something you’d wanted to do, and was it a very different work process for you?
I had worked as an arranger for various Norwegian symphony orchestras for some time. I don’t have any musical education so for me it was fantastic to be able to learn how to do this while actually working with an orchestra. Kaleidoscopic was very different from Jaga. It is just one forty minute piece and is inspired by classical music and soundtracks. Since I have such strong input in what the Jaga music sounds like, I wanted to work with a very different setup. In Jaga we work with songs and often verse/chorus/bridge forms. It was really cool to go out of that world and make orchestral music that doesn’t have that form at all. It was really inspiring and I want to do more.

Do you intend to focus entirely on Jaga for the foreseeable future, or do you think you will try to combine your role within the band and your solo work from now on?
I need to do stuff outside of Jaga obviously. In the last years I have divided my time between writing music for my other band, The National Bank, solo albums, film and theatre music and producing albums with artists such as Martin Hagfors and Susanne Sundfør.

I hope we will tour as much as possible with Jaga Jazzist in the future and that it will not take another 5 years to make a new album.

Email interview January 2010.

Jaga Jazzist | Smalltown Supersound | Ninja Tune

JAGA JAZZIST
One-Armed Bandit
ZEN152
Ninja Tune 2010
10 Tracks. 53mins32secs

Amazon UK: CD | DLD Amazon US: CD | DLD

It’s been over five years since Jaga Jazzist were last heard of. Although the band has existed in one form or another for over fifteen years, formed by then teenage brothers Lars and Martin Horntveth, with sister Line, and a handful of friend, it is not until they signed to Smalltown Supersound in 2001, and were later licensed to Ninja Tune for Europe, that the band gained widespread recognition outside of their native Norway, with albums such as A Livingroom Hush (2001) and The Stix (2002) causing more than a stir. Their last album to date, What We Must, saw the band, renamed Jaga for the occasion, adopt a harsher, grittier stance and distil their usual blend of progressive power jazz with a heavy does of rock.

More subtle and elegant than its predecessor, One-Armed Bandit is not so much a return to the sound of The Stix as an evolution of whatever genres the band has been amassing over the years. Still firmly driven by a powerful rhythmic section, with at its heart Martin’s flamboyant drumming, and rich orchestrations, this album is once again a vibrant and eclectic collection which obstinately refuses to settle in one particular place, instead erupting in glittering melodies (One-Armed Bandit, Toccata, Prognissekongen), seventies overtones (220 Vv / Spektral), angular rhythms (Bananfleur Overalt), ethnic flavours (Music! Dance! Drama!) or brash progressive stabs (Touch Of Evil).

Lars Horntveth began writing the album in early 2008, before the band regrouped and started rehearsing and recording with long term collaborator and producer Jørgen Træen, who had to retire half way through the sessions due to ill health. The mixing of the album was consequently completed in Chicago by Tortoise’s John McEntire. Inspired by Fela Kuti, Frank Zappa and Wagner, according to Lars, One-Armed Bandit is above all a vivid expression of the band’s core sound and of its cohesion as an ensemble. Influences undoubtedly inform some elements of the record, but they are incorporated within the band’s overall sound so as to become integrant part of it. Overall, One-Armed Bandit is much more fluid and open than its predecessor, and while the harsher sound the band developed for What We Must can still occasionally be heard, it is here much more tamed and softened, and integrated into the overall musical structure.

Prior to taking a rather long break, Jaga Jazzist were starting to show some signs of fatigue, resulting in a slight loss of focus. Refreshed and reinvigorated, the ensemble is once again bursting with ideas. One-Armed Bandit might not quite have the panache of The Stix, but it is a refreshing offering from a band in its prime.

4.3/5

Jaga Jazzist | Ninja Tune
Amazon UK: CD | DLD Amazon US: CD | DLD

VARIOUS ARTISTS
You Don’t Know: Ninja Cuts
ZENCD150
Ninja Tune 2008
50 Tracks. 224mins35secs

Ninja Tune have been going for an awful long time. Eighteen years in fact. Back at the outset, deep in the mists of time, when we were quite a bit younger than we are now (if we existed at all, that is), the Ninja crew were a bunch of cool fuckers. They rode in on the backs of the likes of DJ Food, Coldcut, Hex and co. Soon after the founding fathers came a second wave consisting of 9 Lazy 9, Funki Porcini, DJ Vadim and The Herbaliser. The early compilations – Funkjazztical Tricknology, Tone Tales From Tomorrow – were a lot of fun and contributed to a playful rebalancing of the rather-too-serious for its own good self-definition of trip-hop by Bristolian headliners (you know who I mean).

Later in the nineties and early noughties, fascinating leftfield luminaries such as Burnt Friedman, Chris Bowden, Roots Manuva and Jaga Jazzist hopped on the bus. But somewhere along the way the main stable seemed to get a bit hackneyed, those waggish ‘you are listening to a stereo recording’-type samples began to bring listeners out in hives and the Ninja Tune share price plummeted.

Had enough of the history lesson? Knew it all already? Fair enough, but all that’s the background to this three CD release which represents something of a lifting up of the proverbial carpet to see what strange mould outgrowths and unlikely furballs have accumulated in the shadows over the years. This is Ninja Tune taking the opportunity to open up the hoover bag and tell an alternate, arguably more interesting history than the one you’ve just read above (sorry!)

So how about The Cinematic Orchestra, DJ Shadow, cLOUDDEAD, Wiley, Amon Tobin, Spank Rock, Mr Scruff, Daedelus, Ty, Diplo, Homelife, Ghislain Poirier, The Bug? Occasionally, the likes of NMS intoning ‘the government have programmed your brain, it’s a brave new world’ begin to pall, but then along comes Mike Ladd to raise the bar again with the aptly titled Blah Blah. Likewise, Cinematic Orchestra’s Rites Of Spring feels too much like a tokenistic ‘oh look we even do free jazz blowouts’, but the downturn is quickly salved by the rather lovely backwards vocals and strings of Max & Harvey’s Thieves. Over a gargantuan, exhausting and probably over-extended fifty tracks and three hours, forty four minutes and thirty five seconds, we get taught a lesson, the gist of which is – Ninja Tune are a lot more varied, less cuddly, harsher and more in-yer-face than you and your wonky memory might have come to believe. On the evidence of this I’m loathe to disagree.

3.5/5

Ninja Tune
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