Way back in 1990 two young dance producers, disillusioned by their recent experiences with the mainstream music industry, decided to set up their own record label, one free of any overt commercial agenda. Their names were Matt Black and Jon Moore, better known as Coldcut, and they called their label Ninja Tune.

Twenty years on and Ninja Tune has evolved into a national institution. With core acts such as The Bug, Mr Scruff, Amon Tobin and Bonobo, the label has garnered a reputation for releasing consistently high quality electronic music, and an admirably flagrant disregard for fashion. In 1997 it gave birth to Big Dada, a separate label created to focus on the experimental hip-hop of artists such as Roots Manuva, Ty, cLOUDDEAD and Spank Rock, and nine years after that the Counter label was set up to release the alternative rock of artists like Pop Levi and The Heavy. Yet despite the variety of acts under the Ninja Tune umbrella, which range from the restructured Polish jazz of Skalpel to the audio-visual pioneering of Hexstatic, they are linked by a consistently unorthodox approach to music-making.

In the years that have passed since the label’s inception countless dance music scenes have come and gone but Ninja Tune has somehow managed to maintain its position at the centre of the leftfield, observing developments in mainstream music from the sidelines. While it has been associated at various times with nu-jazz, trip hop and broken beat, the range and wealth of the artists on its roster have ensured that the label has weathered the fickle tides of music trends. Recent signings like Jammer, The Qemists and Toddla T exemplify a label that’s as committed as ever to providing a platform for innovative music.

01: DJ FOOD
‘DARK LADY’
(from JAZZ BRAKES VOLUME 4, NINJA TUNE, 1993)

DJ Food encapsulates the ethos behind the label better than any other act. Originally a an alias for Coldcut, the DJ Food project was an attempt to provide ‘food for DJs’ in the form of the Jazz Brakes series. These were collections of breaks and samples for DJs to include in their sets, although they soon became respected as listenable albums in their own right.

Patrick Carpenter of the Cinematic Orchestra was later roped in to help with production duties and as Coldcut dropped out the DJ Food moniker was adopted by Strictly Kev. Yet despite this fluctuating line-up there has been a remarkable consistency in the output of the fictional DJ. This is the haunting but naggingly funky standout track from Jazz Brakes Volume 4.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 29th, 2010 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.