POP LEVI – NEVER NEVER LOVE
new album out 14th JULY on Counter Records
new single “Dita Dimoné” drops 23rd JUNE

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A new compilation from Ninja Tune – You Don’t Know: Ninja Cuts – is filled with 50 tunes that map the sonic territory the label has explored during it’s 2 decades in the biz and adds sonar imagery of what lies ahead. The 3 CD set features tracks all the way 1998 reppin for the label’s early days (Mike Ladd’s rare classic “Blah Blah”) and big hits from every year since plus 9 tunes slated for release later this year! (Yet-to-be-dropped tunes like John Matthias’ fragile and ethereal “Evermore”, The Bug’s toxic dancehall slayer “Poison Dart”, and Pop Levi’s superb, princely “Dita Dimone”…) To celebrate such an amazing audio history, the Ninja Tune extended family is hosting a 3-room banger at Electrowerkz this month that features many of the artists on the 3CD collection!
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Every time I see an amazing lineup for live music, like this one for Ninja Tunes’ record release party or the Bang Face Weekender, I have to ask myself an important question: Do I live on the wrong side of the pond? When every flyer and lineup that I drool over is happening in or near London, it gets more and more difficult to understand why I stay in the US, with the ever-weakening dollar. This is the time of year where party people in the UK and Europe start to promote major music festival weekends that have me gazing at my passport with longing. Next up is a Ninja Tune extravaganza at Electrowerkz in London. On 15th February, a massive posse of premier musicians will take over 3 whole floors of the Electrowerkz nightclub to celebrate the new release of YOU DON’T KNOW: NINJA CUTS – one floor for each CD in the monster compilation! (There’s a whole post about the Ninja Tune compilation too, so scope that next.) ([More →])

Ninja Tune is releasing an epic compilation album called You Don’t Know: Ninja Cuts that drops March 11th. It weighs in at 3 CDs, stacked with 50 Big Tunes from 1998-2008, from Mike Ladd to Pop Levi and from Roots Manuva to Wiley! Last year, HearingTest featured a few of the tracks that made the cut:

The version of “Free” by DJ Kentaro on You Don’t Know: Ninja Cuts is actually an “Armani XXXChange Remix” and the version here is the original edit from Kentaro’s Ninja Tune LP Enter. (I don’t have the remix yet)

DJ C and Modeselektor remix Ghislain Poirier’s “Blazin,” originally from his No Ground Under LP on Ninja Tune. These 2 versions are not included on the remixes album!

DJ C, Ghislain Poirier, Modeselektor Links

DJ C discusses his “Blazin” remix on Mashit – plus a free download of this song!
Modeselektor music $pace
Ghislain Poirier music $pace

When asked to describe the sound of The Bug, Kevin Martin responds, “Beats, Bombs, Bass, Weapons, Congestion, Space, Concussion and Seduction.” !!Sounds Beautiful!! Martin [the man behind the bug] has refined an arsenal of tuff tunes (with Flowdan and Warrior Queen passing the mic) and wicked remixes (for Ghislain Poirier and Thom Yorke of Radiohead) into dangerous dubplate killahs! Perhaps the don of toxic dancehall finished construction on his urban-legendary soundsystem and now makes distorted ragga dubs on a barricade of bassbins instead of a pair of studio monitors! “Poison Dart” is The Bug’s most recent weapon of choice: a staggering riddim made razor-sharp by Warrior Queen’s defiant tongue. It’s a heavy tune that aches to be played BiG and LouD in an open space where the bass can unfurl into the wide wobbling synths that decay into long echoes.

HearingTest has the brand new video for “Poison Dart” and details on the remixes by Skream, South Rakkas Crew, Stereotyp and a Flowdan version that will accompany the originals to be released in December. I’ve even posted Warrior Queen’s lyrics for “Poison Dart” which aim Warrior’s wisdom at young shottas inna de dance. If your native tongue is more patio than patois, these subtitles might help. ([More →])

Ghislain Poirier – Montreal’s instigator of electronic mayhem – has a new album called No Ground Under. Ninja Tune released the LP in Canada, but it won’t be released in the US until early 2008. The first single off No Ground Under is the ragga/dancehall tune “Blazin” featuring Face-T. The EP single includes the original album edit and remixes by The Bug and DJ C. In the meantime, here are 2 different remixes of the same song that are not part of either release: a Modeselektor remix and a second remix from DJ C that’s more of a mashup. ([More →])

A few of ragga and dancehall’s most prolific powerhouses have teamed up with the urban dub/hip hop/electronic music label Metatronix to create a bumpin album of hybrid remixes. Dominated by the vocal talents of Anthony B, Sizzla and Capleton over furious music production by The Bug, High Priest, DMX Krew, Eliot Lip and more, this album is going to be bumpin trunks in urban neighborhoods worldwide. ([More →])

Ninja Tune is planning another fantastic weekend of electronic mayhem for the Montreal area! On September 28th, they will have their Ninja Tune Clockout monthly with Ninja Tune artists from the UK vs. Ninja Tune artists from Montreal – plus “exceedingly special guests!” That’s all they are revealing at this time, but you can try to guess based on the following two days of festivities… ([More →])

The clever ninjas over at Ninja Tune Records have created another source for all of us to get our ever-increasing doses of enjoyable music! Ninja Tune has created an imeem page full of goodies and they want to share it with music lovers.

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I have a little cat to let out of the bag – for those in the London area who love a smashing good live performance. The legendary DJ Kentaro, DMC Champion, will be playing a secret show at Cargo Tuesday night! ([More →])

Last week I mentioned that Ninja Tune and Big Dada would present an event curated by Mary Anne Hobbs in London on the 7th of July. I received more info about this event, so I want to share them with folks who will be in the London area that week.

Ms. Hobbs states that her desire for the lineup she has chosen is, “To bring together dark exotic underground textures of sound from the UK and internationally..”

You Don’t Know Lineup

Downstairs
Mary Anne 9:00 -10:30
dj’ing all the experimental sounds in her record crate
Ben Sharpa & Konfab 10:30-11:30
South Africa’s hottest hip hop duo. formerly known as SA’s best underground hip hop act, they’ll have to drop the underground tag now that they have received so much attention and radio play. They were recently added to the mega-huge Glastonbury music festival.
Oris Jay 11:30 -12:30
ever-extending the limits of grime and dark garage sounds
The Bug 12: 30 – 1:30
best live dancehall mashup madness you can get! if you don’t already know about The Bug, check out his music$pace page, and Ninja Tune which recently signed him onto the ninja squadron… On this particular evening, The Bug will be assisted by Ricky Ranking (Roots Manuva) and Ras B pon di mics.
Virus Syndicate 1:30 – 2:30
extra-London grime and dubstep, great stuff, original ragga influenced dubstep styley
Vex’d 2:30-4:00
Vex’d will be unveiling some new tracks from their upcoming album on Planet Mu.

Upstairs
DJ Red 6
The Sandals Of Justics

This event will be the last YDK at The Big Chill House in London. Ninja Tune/Big Dada/Counter Records will be busy with other projects over the summer months, and then will relaunch the monthly club night in October in a new venue.

LINKS

Ninja Tune
YDK music$pace
Mary Anne Hobbs on BBC Radio1

Fans of surf rock, Beach Boys instrumentals, and late 60’s psychedelic jazz, may I please have your exquisite attention for a moment. I have some big news for you…

“Here’s a little story, I got to tell, about 3 bad brothers, you know SO well. It started way back in history, with Doug, Daryl, Dennis, and Donn Landee….”

It begins with the story of the Dragon brothers, which reads like the Lords of Dogtown for psychedelic surf rockers. In the late 60’s, Doug, Daryl and Dennis Dragon lived, surfed, and rocked in Malibu California. Donn Landee, a high school friend of Dennis Dragon, was working as a recording engineer at Sunwest Recording Studios in Hollywood. The Dragons would sometimes go to the studio to record tracks in the wee hours of morning after finishing a gig in LA. This story is so good, I need to let the original author tell it:

They call the sessions “Blue Forces Intelligence,” find themselves layering their instruments in new ways, adding deep, bassy vocal lines and then ramming them up against falsetto harmonies, adding organs and space age sound effects, recording spirituals and pop and crazy rock opera. The effect is increasingly spacey and weird, but also funky – a missing link between new directions others are exploring in jazz and soul as well as rock music.

Unfortunately, the suits at the West Coast offices of the major labels aren’t ready, complaining that they don’t hear a hit. After shopping the record, now called just “BFI”, for a few months, the boys become disillusioned and focus instead on their session work. They all end up working in the Beach Boys’ backing band. Doug moves to Hawaii, tours Australia. Dennis becomes a successful record producer. Daryl hooks up with Toni Tennille and experiences international chart success as “The Captain”. The Dragons’ “BFI” is forgotten.

In addition to this surf album, Dennis Dragon also composed the soundtracks for skate movies and ski movies…

Jump on 37 years. Strictly Kev/DJ Food, influential mixologist and designer for Ninja Tune and obsessive record collector – picks up a new batch of vinyl from a record dealer he knows. In amongst them is a 500-run private pressing of the soundtrack to a surf movie called “A Sea For Yourself”. On it is a track called “Food For My Soul” by a band called the Dragons. Kev being a fan of all possible food-based puns and currently putting together the mix for his new “Solid Steel” mix cd for Ninja, drops the needle on the groove.

What he finds amazes him – a true psychedelic original from a band he’s never heard of. Using his extensive contacts in the world of vinyl mania, he manages to track Dennis Dragon down. He emails him, asks him if he can include “Food For My Soul” on the mix. Sure, says Dennis. There’s a whole album of the stuff if he’s interested. Dennis checks. Donn still has the master tapes. He converts them to mp3 and emails them to Kev. Kev is blown away. He forwards them to Ninja Tune. Ninja Tune think it’s a scam. But then they listen. And they listen again. And then, after nearly forty years sitting on a recording engineer’s shelf, Ninja Tune decide to release “BFI”.

I was so entranced by this story that appeared as a humble press release in my inbox today, that I had to just quote it directly. I rarely do this, but this was just too good.

“And moral of this story is: keep your master tapes. Whatever you do, keep your master tapes. ”
-James from Ninja Tune

Boy is that the truth! The question now, is ARE YOU READY?

BFI, recorded by The Dragons in 1970, will be released August 27th 2007 by the one and only Ninja Tune! “Food for my soul” was included on both the full length album, Solid Steel Presents DJ Food & DK: Now, Listen Again! and the limited edition Now, Listen Again! 7″ promo record which were both released in April of this year. Check the Ninja Tune Store for copies.

Ninja Tune And Dragons LINKS

Ninja Tune – ultra cool website that features all the Ninja’s allies: Big Dada, Solid Steel, Coldcut…
Ninja Tune music$pace
Dennis Dragon Page in the Composers Index of Soundtracks

Soundtracks by Dennis Dragon include:

Hal Jepsen: surf / skateboard films:
“Super Session”
“Go For It”
“A Sea For Yourself”
“We Got Surf”
“Skateboard Madness”
… etc.

Other films:
“Winter Equinox” (ski film)
“Spinnin’ Wheels” (skateboard film)

Warren Miller Productions, Hollywood, Ca / (ski film):
“Steep and Deep”