Album A Day | Week5 | Feb5-Feb10
DJ Food | 9Lazy9 | London Funk Allstars | The Herbalizer | Coldcut | Amon Tobin
Ninjatune Month
“Cut up the record like a samurai”
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If I had to pick one record label which defined who I am, I would be caught between MoWax and Ninja Tune. Last week I started pulling out Ninja releases, and before I knew it I was back in my London apartment in Crystal Palace, coming down from whatever I had been up to that weekend, and pretending to be Jason Bourne, dressed in a black hoody on late night tubes. Having too much fun, I decided to start a Ninjatune month. 30 or so releases from the home of Ninja. Ninja Tune sat somewhere between jazz, drum and bass, triphop and UK hiphop. On top of their crucial releases, the design from Openmind was graffiti influenced, clean, clearly inspired by anime and manga, with lots of Gundam and so different from the rest of releases at the time. There was solid steel, a pirate radio station which would share 60 minute mixes way before Pete Tong’s Essential Mix, years before RA, and itintroduced me to so many influencers. There was a magical club in Hoxton Sq, which I frequented EVERY week in the early 90’s. The merch was impeccable, from blunt papers, to record bags.
Following a Coldcut tour in Japan with Norman Cook, the label was born, After their success with their first label, Ahead of Our Time, contract issues prevented them from releasing anything new under their own name. Ninja Tune's inaugural release was Coldcut (under the name Bogus Order) house break collection Zen Brakes Vol. 1 in 1990. In 1992, Peter Quicke joined as label manager, as did Patrick Carpenter, a.k.a. PC, as a sound engineer. Between 1994 and 1997 Ninja explored and defined the instrumental hip hop sound further. I will post a few links if you want to dig further over the next few weeks, but some of the releases to get started:
9 Lazy 9 - Paradise Blown - Ninjatune - 1994
I had just moved down to London, just left college, I had spent years at warehouse raves, then years deep in Liverpool House clubs - lots of feather boa’s lots of piano breaks but as I got a little tired of that life I started exploring other styles. I was introduced in London to Acid Jazz, rediscovered hip hop beats, started exploring Jazz and soul.
ColdCut had always been an important part of my life from poppy releases with Yazz and Lisa Stansfield to Solid Steel pirate radio, electro hip hop, and cut and paste. After a tour in Japan with Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim) Coldcut decided to create something brand new - a label called Ninja Tune that would explore this space between hip hop, jazz and breaks. Not yet trip hop. Hanging out with Mixmaster Morris, Kevin Foakes a.k.a. Strictly Kev, Patrick Carpenter aka PC, the crew were making a brand new type of music.
Alongside Up, Bustle and Out, DJ Food, 9 Lazy 9 explored the chilled, jazzy soulful sounds of London. 9 Lazy 9 were an English/Italian group, consisting of Keir Fraser, James Braddell aka Funk Porcini, Gianluca Petrella (trombone), Mishael Levron (guitar), Manù Bandettini (flute) and Adriano Tirelli (bassoon). Keir Fraser is credited as Keir Fraserello.
London Funk All Stars - London Funk Volume 1 - 1995
I was living in Crystal palace exploring London Club - Club UK for Drum and Bass, Covent Garden’s gardening club for house, The Cross for Techno, and listening to Ninja Tune at home. London Funk All Stars was an encapsulation of funk, trip hop, scratching, and sample culture - Any tune that samples street fighter was going to get a lot of airplay. The album was sleazy, dirty, dusty, and reflected by London life to the minute.
The London Funk Allstars were Jason Carter aka Mad Doctor X, Stefan Turner, William George and F J Carter. The Knee Deep in Beats EP and their second album Flesh Eating Disco Zombies vs. The Bionic Hookers From Mars followed in 1996 along with the Sure Shot EP two years later.
DJ Food - Recipe for Disaster - NinaTune - 1995
London had dark nights. Thousands of years of turmoil, angst, piling on top of itself, wars, feudalism, invasions, fires, plagues it has a lot of history. DJ Food's first album seemed slightly more reflective, cerebral, darker, than London Funk Allstars. DJ Food was one of the NinjaTuen core, regular spots on their radio show, always playing live at their events and the first album encapsulated that - classics.
The Herbalizer - Blow Your Heeadphones - NinaTune - 1997
My first ever experiences with dance music before house, before techno, was electro. Mostly American electro and back in the day it was called hip hop - See Street Sounds. Not even rapping but the musical end of hip hop - B Boy culture - scratching, Graf, Djing, Dancing.
The Herbalizer felt like the first “band” on Ninja Tune. Ollie Teeba didn't know any rappers so he made up for by adopting extra ingredients to fill the absence; a widescreen cinematic feel and incredible samples. It felt more mature than DJ food, and the “Dj’s” live performances with real musicians, rappers, and an entourage. I loved Remedies, but Blow Your headphones was probably the first album where the band really found their groove. Incredible cover too.
Funki Porcini - Head Phone Sex - NinaTune - 1995
Trip Hop flirts in and around Hip Hop, Jazz and dusty beats. Funki Porcini was probably the slowest BPM of the Ninja crew, exemplfiying the low end, draggy, jazzy end of Trip Hop - at least at the start of his career. One the one hand I never rushed to see them play live was always looking for more up beat artists, but at 4am when I could’t sleep, just got back from a club, smoking a blunt, or chilling in the sun then I would always reach for one of their releases.
An emblematic although lesser-known highlight of Ninja Tune since its beginnings James Bradell is one of that breed of producers who always seemed disinterested in technological tools and for whom the search for complexity seems to be worthless. Crossing smooth jazz, spatial ambient and more conventional downtempo, As in the most hypnotic films, if you fall asleep before the end, it's not necessarily a bad sign.
VA (Coldcut) - Journeys By DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness - NinaTune - 1995
"It’s a drunken man’s stagger home,”
The best Dj mix EVER.
Before the release of 70 Minutes Of Madness, the DJ mix album had mainly been a straightforward, linear affair, with records (usually house and techno) laid down one after the other, seamlessly (sometimes shabbily) beat mixed together, perhaps with a lull in the middle, but often just a relentless march of uptempo bpms leading towards a crescendo.
The thing that makes 70 Minutes so special, is that when it was beamed down there was really nothing around to compare it to, and since, nothing and nobody has come close. It is as distinctive in its sound as an artist album; a painstakingly created work of art, but sounding fresh, spontaneous and loose.
https://www.mixcloud.com/MsMeg/coldcut-journeys-by-dj-70-minutes-of-madness/
It was, as Tony Naylor says, writing in The Guardian in 2010, "a Damascene moment... a shocking illustration of how boring mainstream, mid-90s dance music had become".
https://thequietus.com/articles/17839-coldcut-seventy-minutes-of-madness-journeys-by-dj
Track listing[edit]
1a. Philorene - "Bola"
1b. Depth Charge - "Depth Charge"
2. Truper, The - "Street Beats Vol. 2"
3. Junior Reid - "One Blood"
4. Newcleus - "Jam On Revenge (The Wikki Wikki Song)"
5. 2 Player - "Extreme Possibilities (Wagon Christ Remix)"
6. Funki Porcini - "King Ashabanapal (Dillinja Mix)"
7. Jedi Knights - "Noddy Holder"
8. Plastikman - "Fuk"
9. Coldcut - "More Beats"
10. Bedouin Ascent - "Manganese in Deep Violet"
11. Bob Holroyd - "African Drug"
12. Air Liquide - "Stratus Static"
13. Coldcut - "Beats and Pieces"
14. Coldcut - "That Greedy Beat"
15. Matt Black & The Coldcut Crew - "The Music Maker"
16. Coldcut - "Find a Way (Acapella)"
17. Mantronix - "King of the Beats"
18. Gescom - "Mag"
19. Masters At Work - "Justa 'Lil' Dope"
20. Raphael Corderdos - "Parp 1 / Rock Creak Parp"
21. Luke Slater's 7th Plain - "Grace"
22. Joanna Law - "First Time Ever I Saw Your Face (Acapella)"
23. Harold Budd - "Balthus Bemused by Color"
24. Photek - "Into the 90's"
25. BDP - "The Bridge Is Over"
26. DJ Food - "Dark Blood (MLO Nu Blud Mix)"
27. Jhelisa - "Friendly Pressure (Acapella)"
28. Hookian Mindz - "Freshmess (Bandulu Mix)"
29. Jello Biafra - "Message from Our Sponsor"
30. Pressure Drop - "Unify"
31. Love Lee - "Again Son"
32. Red Snapper - "Hot Flush (Sabres Of Paradise Remix)"
33. Ron Grainer - "Theme from Dr Who"
34. Moody Boys - "Free"
35. DJ Food - "The Dusk"
Amon Tobin - Bricologe - NinaTune - 1997
Chilled Sunday Ambient but still Ninjatune. Jazzy, slow, foamy, liquid drum and base beats.
Amon Tobin was a fascinating side step for the Ninja tune team, the only non brit (I think) Amon Tobin was Brazilian. Bricolage was his second album, the first released under his own name, (He released Adventurers in Foam an incredible album under Cujo - we may get to that one day). The album was a departure from that first album, incorporating a heavier blend of jazz melodies and intense jungle rhythms.
Tobin was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Tobin's father is Irish. At the age of 2, he and his family left Brazil to live in Morocco, the Netherlands, London, Portugal and Madeira.Tobin settled in Brighton, as a teenager which remained his permanent residence until 2002. There he began producing electronic music in his bedroom with samplers and other audio equipment including an Amstrad Studio 100 4-track. DJ Food and Funki Porcini noticed Tobin's work on Adventures in Foam and prompted the label to approach him. Ninja Tune signed Tobin in late 1996, this time under his abbreviated name "Amon Tobin".
Week 5 in the books, enjoying this - any thoughts/comments? (no requests). Portland, OR.