Neotropic ‘Mr Brubaker’s Strawberry Alarm Clock’

blue indicates where to print gold

art nouveau / circuit board-inspired logo design

RELEASED: Nov 1998
FORMAT: 2xLP / CD
LABEL: NTONE
CAT No.: NTONE30 / NTONECD30
DESIGN: Openmind
PHOTOGRAPHY: Nancy Brown
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

Riz went all psychedelic with her titles and I – for once – attempted a literal imagining of the album name after buying a big bag of clock parts at Brick Lane and a punnet of strawberries. This was shot by Nancy Brown in the back garden of a flat I shared with Ollie Teeba after I had formed a ‘cage’ of clockwork for the strawberry to sit in. It was a lovely day, hot with bright sunshine and we sprayed the strawberry to make it look fresh.

The Herbaliser ‘Wall Crawling Giant Insect Breaks’

RELEASED: July 1998
FORMAT: 12″ / CDS
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT No.: ZEN1270 / ZENCDS70
DESIGN: Openmind
ILLUSTRATION: Jason Brashill
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

This interim cut & paste single in one of my Herbaliser favourites not least because of Jason Brashill‘s excellent cover painting. Having collaborated with James ‘She-One’ Choules on a few things and being an avid 2000ad reader I was aware of crew member Jason’s work and when fellow comics fan Ollie Teeba wanted something for the cover of their new 12″ I thought this would be the chance to team up. We traveled to Brighton to meet up and talked it over, exchanged ideas and a few days later some faxes arrived with rough sketches of robo-bugs depicting the record’s title. The Herbs were on tour so there was much faxing of faxes and Ninja needed label artwork to press the 12″s up with hence the use of the rough sketch versions on the 12″ and CD labels. It was also made into a T-shirt for a tour, if anyone has one please send me one…

Ken Nordine ‘Talking All That Word Jazz’ Solid Steel Interview

BROADCAST: 1998
REMIXED: 2008
FORMAT: CD
LABEL: n/a
CAT No.: n/a
DESIGN: Openmind
PHOTOGRAPHY: From the original Word Jazz LPs
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Approx 10 handmade CDs
EXTRA ZEN: Discogs page
LISTEN: HERE

DK noticed that Ken Nordine was going to be in town, playing the role of God in Laurie Anderson’s show at the South Bank, sometime mid ’97. He arranged for Ken to come into the studio for an interview so that we could do a special for Solid Steel in what would become an irregular series of programs about our musical heroes. Neither of us had done an interview before and we had no idea how we would carry it out so I went away and read through every source I could find about Ken the night before he was due to turn up.

The next day, DK, PC, engineer Ali Tod and I met up at the studio and spent a fascinating hour with the one and only ‘Kent Nor-ping’ as he fashioned himself in one radio show drop he recorded for us along the way. Several of us bought records for him to sign and one of mine was the Blue Thumb compilation ‘How Are Things In Your Town?’. On the back cover were the lyrics to his poem ‘The Ageing Young Rebel’ even though the track didn’t appear on the record and it was at this meeting that we agreed to collaborate on a track that would become our version …

Amon Tobin ‘Permutation’

spot varnish cover detail

CD on body

CD tray back cover

CD inlay open

CD inlay inside

Screen grab of the back cover graphic selected in Freehand

South American cassette versions

Cassette inlay

RELEASED: 01 Jun 1998
FORMAT: 2xLP / CD / Cassette
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT No.: ZEN36 / ZENCD36 / zenMC36
DESIGN: Openmind
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Spot varnish on the LP sleeve, there was also a cassette version made for the South American market
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune.net / BUY

The elements of this sleeve come from a European tour I did in the mid-nineties with The Herbaliser, DJ Vadim and Neotropic where, again, I was photographing anything that took my fancy. The cover image is a very simple merging of two images with transparency filters adding to the colour. One image was some kind of air conditioning unit I saw in an alcove on a German industrial estate and the other was a badly lit neon sign somewhere inside a venue on the tour.

Also on my scavenging hunt I found a 60’s copy of ‘L’Architecture d’Aujour’dui’ which had some incredible images in it that I have pillaged for various other Ninja releases along the way. One page had an advert with an image of an office block with curved windows, some open at different angles, and this is what I traced for the spot varnish overlaid across the cover. Another page had an incredible image of a circular tower made entirely from scaffolding which was used as the basis of the back varnish with part of the image ‘coloured in’

Various Artists ‘Ninja Cuts: Funkungfusion’

inner sleeve

A2 Promo poster

European Tour poster

T-shirt design (front)

T-shirt design (back)

RELEASED: April 1998
FORMAT: 3xLP / 2xCD / Promo 12″
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT No.: ZEN33/ ZENCD33 / ZEN33P
DESIGN: Openmind
PHOTOGRAPHY: Harriet Fuller, Nancy Brown
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: The Japanese CD version on Toys Factory has exclusive cover artwork
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

For some reason when this design was mooted I had the idea of doing a series of Gundam models in primary colours, each dissected at different planes and affixed to boards. I’d just been to Japan for the first time a year or so before and had come back laden with robot models. I built a large Gundam model and then sawed vertically through it as best as I could. After this it was fixed to two bits of wood with plaster covering the uneven joins before the entire thing was painted white save for the hands and a few colour details.

Unfortunately after this I had the bright idea to project the titles and bands’ names onto it which meant blacking out the kitchen of the flat I shared on a sweltering hot day whilst photographer Harriet Fuller attempted to shoot it in low level light. We later discovered that, because it had been suspended, the model was moving slightly all the time and we couldn’t get really good sharp shots of it in the way I envisaged. Another embarrassing case of crossed wires, resulting from my lack of knowledge of photographic terms, meant that the first batch was shot on the …

DJ Vadim ‘USSR: Reconstruction’

12" 1 front cover

12" 1 back cover

12" 2 front cover

12" 2 back cover

CD booklet cover

12" labels

CD tray inside

CD on body

Japanese promo 12" labels

Magazine advert

RELEASED: Jan 1998
FORMAT: 2xLP / CD
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT No.: ZEN3112 / ZEN3134 / ZENCD31
DESIGN: Openmind
PHOTOGRAPHY: Nancy Brown
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune.net / BUY

I love these photos, so saturated in colour and full of texture – full credit to my photographer Nancy Brown for discovering the old inventory room at Nunhead cemetery that housed the books of all the people buried there for over a century. She had been on a visit there, seen the books and knew I would love them so we made another trip and squeezed into the broom cupboard of a room to get as much detail as we could from the decaying leather that bound them.

The photos that resulted were so beautiful I didn’t want to add much so opted for minimal type – barely starting to acknowledge the Russian constructivist connection. There were two double 12″ releases and one had English and one Russian text on the title and sections of a Stockhausen score were inserted into the background to tie in with the Jazz Fudge ads I was doing and Vadim‘s love of music concréte. There is also a Japanese 12’ promo design included here as well as an unused ad.

Coldcut ‘Let Us Play’

inside gatefold

LP inner sleeve 1

LP inner sleeve 2

inner sleeves fit together

alternate unused cover arrangement

French promo CD sampler

very first rough LP cover idea

RELEASED: Sept 1997
FORMAT: 2xLP / 2xCD / VHS
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT No.: ZEN30 / ZENCD30 / ZENVD30
DESIGN: Openmind / Coldcut / Hex
PHOTOGRAPHY: Suzi Green
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: 4xLP test pressings of live tracks for gig use that include instrumental and unreleased tracks. Japanese CD version with extra mixes.
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

This was a very big deal for Ninja as expectation was running high and Coldcut hadn’t released anything since their lauded ‘Journeys By DJ’ mix. Also they were planning to include a CD-ROM (remember them?) of games, software and the like including a demo version of their VJAMM program. There was a lot to cram in, collaborators, lyrics, a certain historical element and the new computer-generated Matt and Jon figures created by Hex. It was a case of everything and the kitchen sink, inner sleeves would take care of a certain amount of info including nearly a hundred photos taken around the Ninja studios by Suzi Green, resident photographer and club night coordinator.

Because of the title it was decided the cover should be a Coldcut toy box full of artifacts that signposted parts of their career both past present and future so a large square flight case was found and filled with anything relevant we could find. A shoot was set up in the studios at Clink St. (the Ninja HQ at that time) and several different versions were done from above and the side as well as the bottom of …

Coldcut ‘More Beats & Pieces’

12" 1 cover

12" 1 back cover

12" 2 cover

12" 2 back cover

Promo sticker

'More Beats & Pieces' DJ battle record labels (unused)

Tower Records window display, 1997

RELEASED: Aug 1997
FORMAT: 12″ / 12″ / CDS
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT No.: ZEN1258 / ZEN1258R / ZEN1258P / ZENCDS58
DESIGN: Openmind / Coldcut
PHOTOGRAPHY: Coldcut
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: 12″ promo with the ‘Daddy Rips it Up’ and ‘Beans & Pizzas’ mixes. Test pressing 12″s of the parts given out to the remixers to make their versions, two pressings: a light and heavy cut.
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

I had a vested interest in this as I had helped write it and the original was one of my all time favourite Hip Hop cut up records. I argued hard for the colours to be muted, to make it more of a big deal when the full colour, all singing, all dancing album arrived but also because of the original’s lack of colour (I’ve always seen it as a black and white record). The back cover showed parts of the arrangement of the record and – as usual – I went overboard with the logos, phrases and general detail.

One of my favourite graphics never made it to print; as part of the remix process Ninja made test pressings of a ‘More Beat & Pieces’ DJ battle record and distributed them to the various remixers of the single. At one point there was a plan to release these so I made up some labels based on an old Stereo Test record graphic (this will be a recurring theme) but the idea was dropped.

Amon Tobin ‘Bricolage’, ‘Creatures’, ‘Chomp Samba’, ‘Mission’, ‘Piranha Breaks’

RELEASED: 01 Jun 1997 / Nov 1996 / May 1997 / Sept 1997 / Nov 1997
FORMAT: 2xLP / CD /12″ / CDS
LABEL: NINJA TUNE
CAT No.: ZEN29 / ZENCD29 / ZENCD1249 / ZEN1253 / ZENCDS53 / ZEN1256 / ZEN1263 / ZENCDS63
DESIGN: Openmind
SPOTTERS DELIGHT:
EXTRA ZEN: Bricolage / Creatures / Chomp Samba / Mission / Piranha Breaks

On my first tour of the US in ’96 – as well as buying as many records, clothes, comics and toys as I could carry – I was snapping away with my camera documenting as much of it as possible too. When we got to Seattle, we visited the Space Needle (as you do) and there, sitting below it as if just landed from outer space, was this sculpture. I thought it looked like a collision of giant lipsticks and took photos of it from all angles and went on my way, not even checking who it was by. Back home a year later Ninja had signed new boy Amon ‘Cujo’ Tobin and needed some artwork and I retrieved these pictures with a view to using them on his releases.

I can’t remember actually speaking to Amon about any of this but it got printed so he must have either liked it or been too shy to say anything. The first appearance was on the ‘Creatures’ single (ZENCD1249) and I washed the colour out, the idea being that the colour would gradually …

Various Artists ‘ColdKrushCuts’ – Coldcut & DJ Food Fight

Reissued Beat Delete 3xLP version

Original CD cover

Toys Factory original Japanese LP version

Promo poster

Posters x3 to show joining up text

Original book bound CD version (Coldcut side)

Original book bound CD version (Krush side)

RELEASED: Feb 1997
FORMAT: 2xCD / 2xLP
LABEL: NINJA TUNE / Toys Factory
CAT No.: ZENCD26 / ZENCD26Ltd
DESIGN: Openmind
PHOTOGRAPHY: Nancy Brown
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Limited edition hardback book version, double LP vinyl editions for Japan through Toys Factory
EXTRA ZEN: ninjatune page / BUY

This was originally a mix CD project for Japan only, pairing Coldcut with DJ Krush in a meeting of East versus West. PC and I were called in to do the business as Coldcut were in the final stages of completing their ‘Let Us Play’ album. I can’t remember much about the thinking for the artwork, only that I wanted to use my friend Nancy Brown‘s photographs of leaves and twigs as the main image (probably still on my big V23 kick at the time).

The hand images on the back were just my hand laid straight on the scanner and meant to symbolise the hands at work on the decks and the two covers were meant to be able to be laid side by side so that the ‘v’ and ‘s’ joined up to make ‘vs’. Matt Black came up with the ‘ColdKrushCuts’ name when we were struggling to work out how to bill the two comps under one title without giving one artist preference over the other,

The CD was originally done as a limited edition hardback book edition (for some reason I still can’t remember) and, although this looked nice, I was never happy with the booklet design inside, it’s a …

DJ Vadim & Primecuts ‘Architects of the Great’

RELEASED: 1998
FORMAT: Cassette
LABEL: JAZZ FUDGE
CAT No.: JFRT001
DESIGN: Openmind
PHOTOGRAPHY: Openmind / Nancy Brown
EXTRA ZEN: Discogs page

Two sides of a cassette and two sides of the architectural coin: the background textures on this mix tape were of rusting metal and the foregrounds were the plans for Frank Gehry’s (then) new Bilbao museum.

I wish that had really been the intellectual intent behind this combination at the time but, in reality, I just really liked the colours on the decaying metal and the strange, organic nature of Gehry’s aerial view of his new creation. As a result, it’s nice to look at but ultimately very difficult to read and way too arty for a hip hop mixtape.

Ollie Teeba ‘Plutonium Discs’ mixtape

RELEASED: 1998
FORMAT: Cassette
LABEL: n/a
CAT No.: n/a
DESIGN: Openmind / Ollie Teeba
SPOTTERS DELIGHT: Sold on tour at Herbaliser shows
EXTRA ZEN:

It’s that Stereo Test record look again! DK had a great Readers Digest record set given to him and let me scan some images from it for this. The blue colour is actually printed in a metallic ink on the final inlay and some of the graphics looks like the ‘Now, Listen’ artwork of four years later.