I designed this last week for a club night in the US called See You Next Thursday (SYNTH), here you can see a rough progression through to the final forms.
Openmind designs
Items created by by design alter-ego, Openmind
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…
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.
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.
I have to feature this because I love the fact that it’s a full page in Creative Review and the tag line Think Tank came up with for it. Thanks to all at Think Tank Media for the superb job they did on this project and believing in and liking it enough to take out such an ad.
Amazing work all round by Mutate Britain, Hit + Run and Chu with contributions from myself and Doc Vek
[vimeo width=”650″ height=”485″]http://www.vimeo.com/15564959[/vimeo]
Urb magazine’s website has had a makeover! In the run up to our US dates there’s plenty to see at the site including interviews, mixes, videos and a chapter from the Ninja Tune book.
Thanks to Hit + Run for the T-shirt printing in the chill out arch which was a nice touch and it was a thrill to see mine and doc Vek’s designs being printed live. See them printing the back of my shirt in the video below
[flickrvideo width=”640″ height=”480″]http://www.flickr.com/photos/strictly-kev/5049546768/[/flickrvideo]
Chu did some great work in the outside bar between arch 1 & 2, probably not seen by most though and hopefully not painted over in a hurry either.
[singlepic id=2427 w=640 h=480 float=left]
I had designed an archive gallery which was pasted onto 5×7 feet boards and there were several huge banners and posters around too.
[singlepic id=2431 w=640 h=480 float=left]
Out in the tunnel / entrance there were specially made gobos showing Ninja logos and in arch 1 Mutate Britain had constructed a huge Ninja head with lasers and smoke coming from the eyes.
[singlepic id=2442 w=320 h=430 float=left] [singlepic id=2440 w=320 h=450 float=left]
A couple of juicy Ninja XX features are on the magazine racks at the moment. The latest issue of Blueprint contains a six page feature on the artwork and design of the label with quotes from yours truly. Also in the same issue are pictures of the Manchester gallery that Agents of Change painted recently (see gallery above), nice to see them getting some props in an architecture magazine.
You can also now read this article online here
[singlepic id=2390 w=340 h=290 float=left] [singlepic id=2392 w=390 h=290 float=left]
Clash magazine has a nice little 8 page commemorative foldout too in their October issue where I pick some of my favourite sleeve designs on one page.
[singlepic id=2397 w=300 h=230 float=left] [singlepic id=2398 w=300 h=230 float=left]
Some more (better) images and a great little film shot by Anthony Dickenson and Dan Lowe of the Ninja Tune XX mural Chu painted outside the 333 in Shoreditch the other week. He’s painting something else special at the Ewer Street gig on October 2nd alongside She-1, can’t wait.
Some more (not very good) pictures of the XX 12″s – out Monday. 1 & 2 only available with a purchase code from the XX box set, 3-6 available for general sale. A mystery seventh 12″ with two remixes of a Ninja classic unavailable anywhere else, will creep into circulation shortly.
and a sneaky reason to own all six 12″s, when put together, the spines spell Ninja Tune XX
I’m very proud to announce my first design entry on the Hardformat blog. Run for three and a half years now, it’s a site dedicated to “reaching for the sublime in music design”, both past and present. One of the first things I think any designer finding the site would think is, “I wonder if I’m on here?”, the second would be, “I want to be featured here”, if they don’t find their work. The site already published the original mock up image of the set a few months back and we entered into a dialogue about it. That turned into me writing up a lengthy piece detailing some of the process involved in realising the gargantuan project.
www.hardformat.org/5200/ninja-tune-xx/
I helped take down the Ninja Tune exhibition at Black Dog today, it’s all gone, wrapped up, shipped back to its owners. Thanks to all who came down and all at Black Dog, especially Marianne Templeton, who put in a ton of effort to make it happen.
Interesting image, looks familiar, seen it before somewhere, can’t place it…
I’m just kidding, go check this out if you’re in London this weekend, a couple of Light Surgeons’ things are playing:
SCHLIMAZELTOV! dir. Christopher Thomas Allen 11m
Documentary short exploring the concept of luck or “mazel” through London’s Jewish Community.
(this is excellent and beautifully shot)
and a live performance of
TRUE FICTIONS 80m
True Fictions is a live audio-visual spectacle that fuses documentary film making, music, animation and motion graphics with cutting edge digital performance tools. A stunning collage of music and live cinema which explores the themes of truth and myth through a multitude of American and Native American voices; with a original musical score created through the collaborations of 25 New York based musicians and vocal artists.
(you need to see this live, multi-layered screen collage at its best)
More info here
The Paris show on Friday was great fun, packed out, great to see Vadim and Yarah on a Ninja bill again too. During mine and DK’s set someone pulled the fire alarm and all the power went off on stage for more than 5 minutes. Unfortunately we were in the middle of a drum n bass section so that went down like a damp squib. Before the gig I went up to the Galerie Chappe to see the exhibition of Ninja art and sleeve design that had been put on, apparently 1,500 people turned out for the opening! Ping Pong, who have done promotion for Ninja for over a decade now under the leadership of Fred ‘DJ Oof’ Elalouf, did a great job of putting together a show which included original art, paste up sheets, sleeves, huge posters and specially made prints of selected covers. They also made exclusive T-shirts, seats and a huge banner for the gigs which greeted me when I walked into the venue. See photos from the exhibition here (warning, this is a Facebook photo album), and it’s on until October 2nd. There are 4 more gigs coming up in Paris over the next few weeks including a huge, long sold out line up at La Machine and two gigs at the Pompidou Centre.
Big mural being painted as I type by Chu down in Hoxton, this is due to go round the whole building – more later
and here’s some progress…
I was having a shitty day with nothing going right when this was hand-delivered from the Think Tank offices out of the blue this afternoon. Eight months of hard slog, revisions, deadlines, corrections, proofs, more revisions, changed constructions and over 50 GB of information went into this.
A slipcase containing 3 hardback books – ’20 Years of Beats & Pieces’ was actually started back in July 2009 and completed just under a year later with a solid six months spent on it and little else. The other two, containing 6 CDs, 6 45’s, 2 posters, a booklet and a sticker sheet (which should have been straight forward but I had no end of hassle with) took another 2 months at least with meetings and discussions as to how the packaging would work going on since March. I even managed to find time to write a new track to go on the damned thing which is on one of the exclusive CDs.
When I look back at 2010 and think what I did that year, this is what will sum most of it up. If you have one on the way then you’re in for a treat believe me, want one, didn’t get round to buying one yet or were maybe sitting on the fence then there are still some available to buy before the big release day on September 20th.
[singlepic id=2332 w=640 h=480 float=left]
Black Dog Publishing open their doors on a Saturday this weekend for people who haven’t been able to make it to the Ninja 20th exhibition in the week. Between 12 and 5pm they will be open and Ninja will have a special pop up shop there selling selected items. I’m not entirely sure what will be available yet but there might be some of the new Ninja Tune XX releases and you will be able to buy the 20 years of Beats & Pieces book for £15 which is a fiver cheaper than the shops. It’s free and at 10a Acton Street, London,WC1X 9NG. This is the last week of the exhibition so it’s now or never…
A 254 track journey through 20 Years of Ninja, Ntone, Big Dada and Counter, as only Dylan Richards knows how. Free download when you buy the Ninja Tune XX box set, standalone CD coming shortly after. This redefines the term ‘mix CD’ in a lot of ways.