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Tag - NINJA TUNE

Starkey - Open The Pod Bay Doors - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 31 October 2011, 10:50

Starkey Open The Pod Bay Doors
Starkey - Open The Pod Bay Doors
(12"/Digital) Ninja Tune ZEN12302/ZENDNLS302, 2011-10-31

Starkey continues Ninja Tune's fine run of EP's with Open The Pod Bay Doors. The kind of transcendental, melodic and immaculately produced music that will see Starkey fit in nicely within the labels roster. The EP is a good example of Starkey's (aka PJ Geissinger from Philadelphia) multifaceted and genre-crossing talents as a producer that have been gaining much acclaim ever since his 2005 debut. Starkey's original grime and bass leaning productions can be heard throughout (his own Seclusiasis label is at forefront of Street Bass in the USA), especially on Rayguns and Blood Roses but it's his compositional talents and more delicate blemishes seaping into his beats which are really starting to make Starkey stand out. Lead track Open The Pod Bay Doors is an epic statement of intent that builds in the most beguiling of ways, at once melodic, futuristic and tough.

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Slugabed - Sun Too Bright Turn It Off EP - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 24 October 2011, 10:44 2

Slugabed Sun Too Bright Turn It Off EP
Slugabed - Sun Too Bright Turn It Off EP
(promo CD/12"/Download) Ninja Tune ZENCDS301/ZEN12301/ZENDNLS301, 2011-10-24

Slugabed, otherwise known as 22-year old Greg Feldwick is back with the Sun Too Bright Turn It Off EP, his second for Ninja Tune. It follows unanimous praise for his first Ninja Tune release Moonbeam Rider, and is the next step on the way to a highly anticipated debut album in 2012. STBTIO is an instrumental EP which is at once complex, deep, thoughtful and above all distinctive. It channels the energy of the best of todays bass music, through spacey bleeps and meditative melodies to explore the outermost reaches of electronic music making today. Slugabed also happens to be one of only a handful of producers to have successfully remixed Roots Manuva's Witness (for Ninja Tune XX), with the instrumental also finding its way into Roots Manuva live sets. The Slugabed remix is also a standout on the upcoming Get To Get single by Roots Manuva, showcasing once again his talents as a producer for MCs. Slugabed is the kind of maverick electronic free spirit that has found a perfect home on Ninja Tune; cherish and support a man on the rise.

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Toddla T - Streets So Warm - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 17 October 2011, 00:12

Toddla T Streets So Warm
Toddla T - Streets So Warm
(Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZENDNLS300, 2011-10-17

Fresh from the release of his acclaimed second album Watch Me Dance, Toddla T re-visits the sounds of Jamaica for his follow-up single Streets So Warm. For the track Toddla enlisted Kingston local Wayne Marshall to provide vocals for his dancehall tinged production. The single is the third to be taken from the acclaimed album, it is a timely reminder of his raw production talent given that getting his second album out there has not been particularly an easy path for Toddla T and all those involved. Firstly, the LP was leaked months before release, followed by the finished stock being destroyed in the PIAS warehouse fire during the London riots, delaying it's availability by a week. Remixes for Streets So Warm come from Zed Bias, Serial Killaz and Ross Orton & Pipes.

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Emika - Emika - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 03 October 2011, 00:45

Emika
Emika - Emika
(2xLP/CD/Download) Ninja Tune ZEN156/ZENCD156/ZENDNL156, 2011-10-03

Today's modern day composer can work in many different areas of sound with one click of a mouse. This is the single most influential factor in Emika’s artistic development. After years of musical education and having an entire studio in a box as her instrument, she feels it’s her duty to music to develop the art of song writing and recording on every level possible. A sound designer and composer who writes and records for herself from her bedroom in Berlin, her instruments are DIY soft synths, her voice, piano, and samples. Already highly-rated by everyone from Mary-Anne Hobbs to Thom Yorke and covered by media outlets as varied Resident Advisor and The Guardian, the release of this, her eponymous debut album, is awaited with considerable anticipation.

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Fink - Perfect Darkness / Berlin Sunrise - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 03 October 2011, 00:43

Fink Perfect Darkness Berlin Sunrise
Fink - Perfect Darkness / Berlin Sunrise
(promo CD/Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZENDNLS303, 2011-10-03

As his highly anticipated autumn tour draws near, enigmatic folk-rocker Fink announces the release of double A-side Perfect Darkness/Berlin Sunrise. Produced by Billy Bush the smoldering atmospheric passion and melancholy of Perfect Darkness is beautifully matched with the uplifting and seductive Berlin Sunrise. Both songs have already become firm live favourites, and feature on Fink's recently released and critically acclaimed album Perfect Darkness. Hotly tipped vocalist and Ninja Tune label-mate Andreya Triana has recorded a stunning version of Perfect Darkness. Having previously worked with Fink on her 2010 album, Lost Where I Belong, the highly talented South London singer-songwriter lends a beautiful smoky soul to the bewitching Fink album opener, transforming it into an ethereal, dreamy lights-down anthem. Perfect Darkness has also been remixed by the upcoming, widely acclaimed producer Lapalux who has reworked the track into a five minute blaze of gloriously glitchy electronica reminiscent of Flying Lotus and James Blake. Legendary MyMy producer and Berlin-based DJ Lee Jones has been on remix duties for track Berlin Sunrise, lending a laid back, deep house groove and an understated euphoria to the intoxicating original vocal line.

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Mr Scruff - Feel It! / Bounce - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 26 September 2011, 11:00

Mr Scruff Feel It Bounce
Mr Scruff - Feel It! / Bounce
(12") Ninja Tune ZEN12297, 2011-09-26 / (Digital) Ninja Tune ZENDNLS297, 2011-11-21

The scruffalicious Sexpot of the Stockpot returns with another rum punch of housy, funky deepness in which the filthy, the furious and those in need of a brew will swim like little fishes in search of Our Lord. Feel It! has a rhythm designed by Long John Silver's wooden leg, a bit of ghostly moaning from Hammer Horror's lost disco classic, Across The Moor To Studio 54, some of the finest one-handed keyboard playing ever left unquantised, plus choppy, soulful vox for those moments when only waving your outstretched index finger and thumb right in front of your nose will do. Bounce, on the other hand, has some of the finest one-handed keyboard playing ever left unquantised since Feel It! and a thumpier, most insistent build, that goes all polyrhythmic and hypnotic and quite subtly, shimmeringly brilliant on yer. After some of his jazzier work-outs, this latest release showcases a new, stripped-back, buff Mr. Scruff, all six-pack and tremendous abs, a bearded wonder of northern manliness.

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Kid Koala - Space Cadet - Graphic Novel / Soundtrack out on Ninja Tune

Monday 19 September 2011, 12:16

Kid Koala Space Cadet
Kid Koala - Space Cadet - Graphic Novel / Soundtrack
(10") Ninja Tune ZEN174, 2011-07-20
(MP3 or WAV Download & PDF book / Book & CD) ZENDNL174/ZENCD174, 2011-09-19

Space Cadet is a 132-page graphic novel drawn entirely on etchboards. It is accompanied by a "still picture score" of music composed and recorded by Kid Koala. This charming story of an adventurous space cadet and her guardian robot touches on the relationship between technology and isolation, and celebrates the idea of connectivity through family and the cycles that build generations. A tomorrow-days lullaby about finding your place in the universe, the use of etchboards have given Koala's trademark pathos-drenched tales of love and loneliness a whole new depth and beauty. The music, meanwhile, matches this mood. Built up from the Kid's own piano playing, which sounds like a speakeasy pianist playing Satie when the punters have staggered home, Koala has added strings, horns, marimba and subtle use of his core instrument, the turntables. The results are scintillating, a suite of music that certainly reflects the moods and themes of the book, but which bear repeated listening in their own right.

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Stateless - I'm On Fire - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 19 September 2011, 00:04

Stateless Im On Fire
Stateless - I'm On Fire
(Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZENDNLS290, 2011-09-19

Stateless return with the 3rd EP from their sophomore album, Matilda. In the summer of 2008 Stateless were doing a TV show in Manchester when they happened across the amazing talent of Shara Worden, who was promoting her latest My Brightest Diamond project. Quick to spot her potential, Stateless mainman Chris James subsequently jumped on a plane for Brooklyn to record a duet he'd written especially for her. After a brief series of face to face, live takes, it became apparent that they had stumbled across something magical. The song was transfixing, with the kind of pace and emotional pitch that cuts to the nerve. As a part of the Damian Taylor "Matilda" sessions the track was given some electro resonance, Gillian Wood's strings added a lushness. The band's Kidkanevil sculpted the arrangement into the climactic piece we release today. The EP comes with the type of progressive electronic mixes we have come to expect from Stateless courtesy of Blue Daisy and new Ninja signee Slugabed as well as a wholly new track...

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Raffertie - Visual Acuity - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 29 August 2011, 00:13 1

Raffertie Visual Acuity
Raffertie - Visual Acuity
(12"/Promo CD/Digital Single) Ninja Tune ZEN12295/ZENCDS295P/ZENDNLS295, 2011-09-12

Benjamin Stefanski aka Raffertie releases his first EP for Ninja Tune and it instantly establishes this young producer as a name to watch in electronic music. Not for Raffertie the arid choices of "post-dubstep" (how to sell out and when?). A young music producer of exceptional confidence and rigour, Raffertie instead makes electronic music to explore the boundaries of the possible. The Visual Acuity EP displays newfound maturity whilst keeping the nuances and character that mark him out as a true individual. Both intensely cerebral and stupidly banging, Visual Acuity may fake being an aural equivalent of ADHD, but there is purpose to every twist and turn in this huge tune, the way that Raffertie pulls the music in and out of focus givng rise to its title. He will release his debut artist album on Ninja Tune in early 2012.

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Emika - Pretend / Professional Loving - out on Ninja Tune

Monday 29 August 2011, 00:10

Emika Pretend
Emika - Pretend / Professional Loving
(12"/Promo CD/Download) Ninja Tune ZEN12291/ZENCDS291P/ZENDNLS291, 2011-08-29

One of the most hotly-tipped female artists around right now, Emika returns with the last warm up single for her forthcoming, self-titled debut album. A double-A of obession and alienation, of getting lost in the music and struggling to find your way back, the anglo-czech artist based in Berlin shows once again that there can be more to being a singer-songwriter than an acoustic guitar and a winsome smile. Remixes come from all quarters. Berlin experimentalists Brandt Brauer Frick turn in a stripped back 8 minute mix, operating on the borders between classical music and techno. Kyle Hall's techno is, of course, born from the wellspring of Detroit and his take on Pretend reflects this. DJ Rashad's more frenetic interpretation, on the other hand, brings us closer to a Chicago take on witch-house. In an age of idnetikit pop starlets Emika has always stood out from the pack. A hugely talented producer who uses her voice and her own obsessions to craft something unique, her combination of frailty and power has had her tipped by everyone from Resident Advisor to The Guardian.

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We'd like to thank the following key labels for their long-time support :