ukhh.com | features | video | Ninja Tune Audio / Video Extravaganza Volume 3

Ninja Tune Multimedia in conjunction with:

Ninja Tune Extravaganza Volume 4
Despite a history spanning well over a decade, Ninja have never released a greatest hits style compilation…until now. Because this month Ninja Tune have released Zen - A Ninja Tune Retrospective. This is certainly a chance to remember some of those lost classics like DJ Food's 'Dark Lady' and the Cornelius Mix of Coldcut's 'Atomic Moog'.

To coincide with this ever-so important release we at britishhiphop.co.uk and ukhh.com are giving you the chance to download a whole host of retrospective goodies from the ZEN CD and RMX compilations and ZEN TV DVD.

But for good measure we have included some brand spanking new tunes like Blockhead's 'Carnivores Unite' and an exclusive from Big Dada's cLOUDDEAD, 'The Velvet Ant', from the forthcoming album 'Ten'. On the visual side we are also giving you the chance to stream the exclusive '1958' video by the Polish duo Skalpel and Jaga Jazzist's video from their latest single 'Day'.

Below you will find all the hyperlinks of ten, yes, 4 full-length audio streams (in both Real Audio & Windows Media), the hyperlinks for a free MP3 download of the songs featured, as well as 4, terrific full-length video streams.

Ninja Tune Videos

Blockhead's 'Insomniac Olympics'
Oh God. It’s almost painful to say it but we got no choice. You know you’ve been looking for the “next DJ Shadow” or the “new RJD2”? Well, we found him and his name is Blockhead.

“On what grounds do you claim this?” you cry. Well, the boy has a solid background in underground hip hop, having produced much of the material on Aesop Rock’s Def Jux albums “Labor Days” and “Float” and makes epic, emotional beatscapes with much the same grasp of structure as the big guys. He’s a bluechip talent – listen and you’ll hear it.

From when the bass kicks in early in “Insomniac Olympics,” through the elegaic strings of “Carnivores Unite,” on into the blues harp and hook of “A New Day” into the “War Pigs”-styled bass of “Triptych Part 3,” it doesn’t take much listening to know you’re dealing with something pretty special. There are a very few producers working in hip hop or its related European disciplines who can take a tune and keep developing it over the space of a song, let alone distill so much emotion into every note, making it melancholy and strangely uplifting all at the same time.

New York native Blockhead has worked with a heap of people including Slug of Atmosphere, Murs, Mike Ladd and SA Smash and is even jointly responsible for the first (and perhaps last) comedy record to come out on NY uber-label Def Jux. His beautiful debut solo album “Music By Cavelight” will be released by Ninja early next year…

Hexstatic ZEN TV video-mash up
Since the mid-nineties and the groundbreaking Stealth parties at the Blue Note in Hoxton Square, Ninja has been almost as well respected for its engagement with visuals as it has for its audio. Now at last, the two come together on this massive retrospective of almost a decade of experiment, innovation, humour and weirdness.

The ZenTV DVD has twice the capacity of a normal DVD, containing as it does 35 promo videos from the label, a fifteen minute audiovisual mix and a 30 minutes audio mix from Hexstatic. And as if that wasn’t enough, the DVD has a state-of-the-art menu system which means you can watch the videos either in the order we intended, randomly, or chronologically from the oldest to the newest or the newest to the oldest. You can also look up any specific act and check out their videos and album art. Or just leave a gallery of some of Ninja’s finest covers running in the corner of the room as a kind of ambient art installation dahlink… Mwah.

But that just scratches the surface, really, cos after all, in the kingdom of the blind content is king. Or something like that. You know the music is going to be good (we hope you know the music is going to be good), but what about the visuals?

Well, one advantage with not having hit records (Coldcut’s “Beats & Pieces” remains our one top forty for 12 years work) is that you don’t have to worry about getting your promos shown on daytime MTV or TOTP or any of those hellholes of visual mediocrity where all the bands have to look fabulous and if they don’t, well you better make sure you put some models in there who do… So instead, you can be (whisper it) creative.

Which is why some of the top up-and-coming names in video direction and animation have worked for Ninja in the last few years. Because they know that if they pitch an interesting, visually striking, innovative idea, they will be left to get on with it without interference. Established directors like Alexander Rutterford (Amon Tobin, now working for Radiohead) Sam Arthur (DJ Vadim) as well as young turks like Conkerko (Bonobo). Fizzy Eye made their first music video for Wagon Christ (the truly excellent “Receiver”) and have since gone on to do commercials for Honda, proving that a track record with Ninja doesn’t ruin your business prospects.

Beyond this, artists like Kid Koala and Jaga Jazzist often even commission their own videos, working with close associates to find the perfect match between their sound and the director’s vision. As if that wasn’t enough, there are artists on the label who are intimately involved in the creation of their own videos, whether it’s the Scruff cartoons that make up the basis of his Cosgrove Hall-animated “Sweet Smoke,” the pioneering audiovisual cut-ups of Hexstatic and Coldcut, Funki Porcini’s satires of adverts or his weird, otherworldly concrete moving abstracts.

Overall, since those early audiovisual mash-ups, the driving force behind all of Ninja’s visual work has been that the video is not merely an unrelated promo item to sell a single but should be intimately related to the sounds it represents. The budgets may be small, some results may be more effective than others, but there’s no denying that the attempts to realise this ideal are never less than interesting.

Are you sitting comfortably?

Skalpel '1958'
Skalpel are Marcin Cichy and Igor Pudlo, from the aforementioned Wroclaw in the aforementioned Poland. Talented DJs, and regular contributors to Ninja's Solid Steel radio show over recent years they also draw on the unique heriatage of their nation to make fantastic fun, funky, crisp and crunchy music. Diggin’ in the Polish crates has led to a peerless album “Skalpel” due out in April, to the single limited edition “Sculpture” single (which sold out on release) and now this.

If the original makes you think of Mr Scruff jamming with Art Blakey, then Skalpel’s own remix is more like Dee-lite bashing out a tune with Cozy Powell – and set to be a dancefloor favourite over the coming months. The package is rounded out by a deep and rough mix from Quantic in his house style. He’s never been to Poland, but apparently Brighton’s a little like it on a wet night in February.

Jaga Jazzist - Day
The Norwegian fusoid jazznut drum twiddle merchants from the land of the midnight sun. magic mushrooms, busty valkerie characters and non-ironic beardage return. And how they return.

“Day” was one of the finest moments of catchy goodness from their recent “Stix” album, mixing up as it does, sunny acoustic guitar, super sharp shooting double bass and the kind of ratchetted, precise drum and bassiness that gives you a dancefloor hernia. Oh, and some sweeping strings. Those kids, those crazy kids.

Not content with a reprise, they throw in “Two Things,” a brand new track which ups the glitch quotient until you feel like your brain is skipping but in a deeply felt and rather melancholy sort of way. The musical equivalent of watching a French film in which very beautiful women decide that life is no longer worth living.

After which, the remixers are unleashed. The ever-so-famous Herbert, who having spent years crumpling up balls of paper, has found international acclaim with his big band, comes through with a really very sly and rather wonderful take on the original, with a clown car middle 16 and the kind of rhythm which sounds like an aerobic workout for machines who are much cooler than you and all your friends…

Last but not least, come the one the only DAT Politics, who start off by making a cup of tea and end up clicking up your life into some kind of hymn. The trio from Lille are becoming renowned at the less erm, rigorous/abstrract end of the glitch spectrum and if this piece doesn’t put a smile on your face, well then sod off and listen to your Eric Clapton records. Or make a cup of tea. Or take some magic mushrooms. Or… well, you know what we mean.

Ninja Tune Audio

Blockhead 'Carnivores Unite'
Taken from Blockhead's debut album 'Music By Cavelight'. Aesop Rock's former producer stuns us with his beautiful instrumental hip hop.

cLOUDDEAD 'The Velvet Ant'
Big Dada gives us an exclusive from cLOUDDEAD's second album 'Ten'. Expect razor-sharp vocal interplay, quirky found sound samples, and a fair share of nosdam's growl-slow drums!

DJ Food 'Dark Lady'
Bassline appropriated by Bomb The Bass for their Bug Powder Dust track - check the sleeve credits for a DJ Food thanks. A track that will forever now be associated with smashing the back board of the basket in NBA Street.

Ironically not a good Basketball player to be found in the Ninja camp.

'Atomic Moog' by Coldcut (Cornelius Mix)
A true classic done as a swap mix with the Japanese don.

All these tracks are still available to buy, so check the Ninja Tune Homepage.

ukhh want to thank Ninja Tune for the use of these tracks and footage.