Ninja Tune

Ninja Tune Statement on PIAS Warehouse Fire

Many of you will have heard about the riots in London and around the UK this week, the causes of these are many, complex and I’m not about to go into my views on them here. There are many repercussions to be felt from these that will no doubt be felt for years, if not decades, to come in this country. An immediate one though is the needless destruction of a warehouse containing stock from over 150 independent labels, including Ninja Tune and its sub-labels. PIAS (Play It Again Sam) have been our distributor for many years now and I have nothing but admiration for the way they are handling this catastrophe alongside AIM, – official Ninja statement below.

A fire on Monday night in London wiped out the entire stock in the primary warehouse of 165 Independent record labels. The best way to help in the immediate future is to buy an album from one of these labels from a UK digital store, local record shop whilst stocks last or direct from the label. This will enable them to remanufacture CDs and vinyl more quickly, to resupply the record shops who are also affected by the riots. For Ninja Tune it means we have had to put Toddla T album release back to August 22nd and spend a lot of money repressing other titles. It’s very sad to know some of our wonderful and more obscure back catalogue titles may never get to be repressed.

Alison Wenham, Chairman and CEO of AIM, the UK’s Trade Association for the Independent Music Industry, has also commented: “This is a disaster for the music community, but with the fans’ help, labels and artists will survive. Please show your support for the music community by buying a digital album from an independent label today.”

Although we despise the many gross inequalities and immoral profiteering in our country, it’s emblematic of the riots’ futility that a warehouse storing millions of units of the unusual, interesting and less commercially minded albums on indie labels was torched. We wish all the other affected labels and our excellent distributor the best of luck. And thanks to all our supporters! The full list of record labels is here: http://www.pias.com/uk/pias-distributed-labels-list/

Also – news of a new fund to help struggling labels – see the link below for more:

[PIAS] & AIM Establish Fund for Labels Adversely Affected By The Sony DADC Fire

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Unarchiving old work

I am periodically asked by Ninja to find designs and artwork for old releases as they’ve been lost over time and they need to repress them. In order to do this I have to go through an ever lengthening process as time and technology marches on.

First of all I have to find the files amongst folders of CDr‘s

Then boot up an old G4 Powerbook that has the classic environment installed, the file formats are too old to be read by current Mac’s.

Transfer the files onto the laptop so that I can use the Extractor program to decompress them, hoping they haven’t corrupted in the ensuing years.

Bounce the files back to the Mac Pro and open them in Freehand 10, making a note of any fonts or files that haven’t been archived with the set.

Find said files and fonts, reload them and open the files.

Cut and paste the whole lot into InDesign to tweak and make print-ready for today’s environment. There is usually a bit of work to do as old files never convert exactly, certain details have changed over time (address, distribution etc) or things need tidying up as my design skills were lacking back in the day.

Convert to a Postscript PDF for the printer

Sorry for possibly the most dull post ever but I’m sure some designers will sympathise.

Posted in Ninja Tune, Openmind designs. | 4 Comments |

DJ Food – 3rd EP finally finished

It’s been a productive week for music, I finally finished the 3rd EP in the trilogy that will make up my album. Plus the cover version of The The’s GIANT featuring Matt Johnson on vocals that I’ve literally been working on for years. The keen-eyed among you will also have spotted that Matt’s friend and sometime musical collaborator, JG Thirlwell appears on one track too.

I have one more track that I’m reworking from a previous EP to finish for the album and then I have to sequence it all for the CD version and do artwork. Also next week I am remixing Loka for the first single from their second LP, due out this autumn on Ninja Tune. 2econd Class Citizen, whom I collaborated on this EP on one track, has also turned in a remix for this which is a nice touch.

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Amon Tobin ‘ISAM’ exhibition & live show

[youtube width=”640″ height=”385″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0GRxu0oIEA&feature=player_embedded#at=22[/youtube]

I went to the opening of Amon Tobin and Tessa Farma‘s exhibition last night, showing original sculptures from the ‘ISAM’ album artwork at the Crypt Gallery in St. Pancras, London. It’s on between the 26th May and the 5th June 2011 and is free, before being taken to Paris (Galery Art Roch) between the 13th and 23rd June. Dates are also being confirmed for Brussels, Berlin, and North America later in the year.


Also very much looking forward to seeing Amon’s live set when it comes to town, it debuts at Mutek next week.

[youtube width=”640″ height=”385″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Umf0C0WCsr8&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]

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New Wagon Christ video – ‘Chunkothy’

[youtube width=”636″ height=”382″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpPVPEoJdb0[/youtube]

Taken from the new Wagon Christ album ‘Toomorrow’, out now on CD, LP and download

The ‘Chunkothy’ video is directed and animated by Celyn Brazier at Nexus with Beccy McCray providing invaluable production skills. Bali Engel helped colour and provided the beautiful animated sequences for the insect loop and fishes. Margot Tsakiri-Scanatovits and Manav Dhir also provided colouring skills and contributed to the animation of the insects. Steve Mc Inerney constructed the final edit with perfect timing and imagination.

The animation was created in Photoshop, with most sequences on one layer. It was as simple as that really. No gimmicks, no tweeny motion tricks, no cgi.  Celyn created small beat guides for reference, sometimes following the rhythm, for example on the bouncy ball loops, but mostly as many random patterns and as much weird sh*t that she could possibly make in six weeks.

CREDITS
Celyn Brazier – directing, deigning, colouring, animating
Beccy Mccray – producer
Steve Mcinerney – editor
Bali Engel – colouring, animating
Margot Tsakiri-scanatovits – assistant colouring
Manav Dhir – assistant colouring

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Amon Tobin – Splinter Cell Remixes

Amon Tobin‘s 2005 Splinter Cell game soundtrack has been remixed to coincide with the release of a new 3D version of the game. Various Ninja Tune artists such as Daedelus, Kid Koala, King Cannibal, The Qemists, Eskmo and Lorn have worked their magic on the tracks alongside a couple of new pieces by Amon himself.

For the artwork I was required to update the original and decided to experiment a little with the 3D analyph technique you can achieve in print. If you have a pair of red and blue 3D glasses to hand, have a look at this from the inner sleeve of the vinyl. The physical LP and CD versions are released in April but you can buy the download version right now from the Ninjashop.

ZEN171 3D cover 650

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‘The Crow’ animation by Tom Webb

DJ Food – The Crow Animated from Tom Webb on Vimeo.

Tom Webb contacted me with this film he made as part of his 3rd year Illustration Minor project. It’s the first half of the DJ Food track ‘The Crow‘, written by PC, from our ‘Kaleidoscope‘ LP. Here are his comments about the making of it;

“I set myself the task of trying to illustrate the DJ Food album Kaleidoscope. Initially, I was trying to produce stand alone images but eventually decided to dive into the world of animation for the first time. I created a sequence for the first half of The Crow. I was hoping to animate to the whole track, I storyboarded a lot of it but the deadline got the better of me.”

TW sketch1TW image4TW image5TW image1

“The images were created as spontaneous responses to the sounds and atmospheres I was hearing inside some of the tracks. I started investigating ‘Full Bleed’, ‘Cookin’, ‘The Riff’, ‘The Crow’ and both the ‘Sleep Dyad‘s’ a lot because of their particular energies.

The idea was to finish making the image before the track finished, so I started painting with my hands to help speed things up and build a small library of personal reactions in texture. I then scanned the images at hi-res and chopped out suitable macro sections which were then imported into the animation. There was a lot of trial and error involved. It’s also the first time I’ve had a go at animating so I had to learn the program from scratch as well.”

I personally love the syncopation he’s got and the movements from dark to light corresponding to the moods of the track. You can see more of Tom’s work on his blog calamridropkick.com

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Ninja Tune XX box set news

An XX box set just went for nearly £300 on eBay someone should have told the bidders that Ninja had a few tucked away for their new site launch and the winner could have saved themselves £200. In other news, the box set was featured in an end of year round up in the New York Times of all places (there we are over on the right) alongside, Elvis, Dylan, the Stones, Springsteen, Lennon and more…

Picture 6

Posted in Design, Music, Ninja Tune, Openmind designs, Records. | 8 Comments |

December gigs

Lots of gigs coming up in December (see full listing over on the right) The Ninja Tune XX celebrations travel to Brighton, London and Prague, Belgrade and Beinne this month.
Brighton 10th flyerKINGFLY(2)-2A2.indd First off is the big Bonobo gig after party in Brighton at the Concorde 2, the day after is King Cannibal’s ‘Way of the Ninja’ mix CD launch at the Rhythm Factory with free entry all night and goody bags for the first 100 in.

The next week sees me in Prague at the Palac Akropolois with Grasscut for a Ninja 20th AV set and then Belgrade the next day at the Tube.

Saturday 18th I have not one but two gigs in London, a Videocrash Solid Steel XXmas party with Hexstatic, DK, Cheeba and more down at the refurbished Electrowerkz. Before that though I’ll be spinning a guest slot down at Classic Material at C.A.M.P. in Old Street, with a vinyl only set of classic Hip Hop from the year 1989. in case you’ve not heard about this night, this is the third installment and each month sees a year celebrated from Hip Hop’s golden periods. DJ Format and Andy Smith have both stepped up and it’s my turn this time. Only records from ’89 will be played, special box sets will be available on the night of CD mixes and T shirts and Chris Read and co. (who run the night) will be in support.

New Years Eve sees DK and I see the year out in fine fashion in Bienne, Switzerland with a special 4 deck AV set.

SS Xmas videocrash flyerCLASSIC_MATERIAL_20112010_eFlyer

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