FFWD Weekly
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Beat Boutique by Rob Faust The intellectual and spiritual hedz of the beat renaissance will pitch tent Sunday night down at the Warehouse for all us here in palookaville. Armed with the full multimedia bag o’ tricks, Coldcut will visit our corner of the cow patch to bring enlightenment, spread joy and separate the hedz from the noise. Disenchanted with their major label deal back in the ’80s, Johnathon More and Matt Black struck out to create their own label that catered less to the lowest common meathead and more to those interested in the experimental aspect of the emerging post-U.K. rave culture electronic scene. Blending aspects of fortified funk, rare groove, jazz and hip hop, Coldcut developed a scene and sound that, to this day, is the benchmark of the genre. Black and More founded Ninja Tune as a stable for those like-minded denizens of left field who saw the potential of their music but needed a label that could provide support and refuge from which to spread the message of intelligent beat music. Today, many celebrated beat bands reside on the little label that is – Dynamic Syncopation, DJ Food, Amon Tobin, DJ Vadim, Herbaliser, Kid Koala and Hexastatic are some that might ring a bell. Many devotees can recall their first mind-blowing encounter with a Coldcut tune – mine was the slow grind of Grant Green’s "Down to the Ground" that became the bed for Eine Kleine Hedmusik – but Matt Black can’t pick his favourite from the batch. "Well, we’ve done so many, I can’t really recall a particular track that I would call my favorite. It’s been our philosophy to be purposeful with what we do, to cultivate Ninja the way, say, Blue Note was cultivated, to make music that resonates as much as the stuff that we love to listen to." If the Ninja train were to suddenly stop, there’s ample enough proof of the longevity of this music – it has influenced everyone from Kruder and Dorfmeister to Massive Attack, producing 10 years of music that keeps creeping to the fore. Despite the fact that Coldcut have never really developed the all-important mass market appeal, Canada has become a significant base of support for these Ninjas. "(T)o get something marketed in North America really takes a different sort of approach. I mean, Americans invented marketing, so it’s no surprise how overmarketed the continent is. That in itself is a task that is difficult to comprehend, difficult to break through... when (people) come to hear us and they’ve heard that we’re a trip hop band or hip hop band." To label them within specific parameters does Coldcut a disservice, as both Ninja and Coldcut have an air of indescribability to them – neither fish nor fowl, they’re extremely adept in both aquatics and flight. It’s hip hop without the jiggy arse-waggling or b-boy circumstance, and experimental without the need for a degree in art to "get" it. Ninja rose at an important time for this music – while other labels were looking to capatilise on a particular sound, Ninja surfaced with releases that made you think about the way the music was constructed. The label has been far more consistent than others, nimbly finding defining moments in the development of the music, taking a brief trip into extreme left field when a formula was beginning to show. "It’s like all music – when it’s predictable, people will get bored. You need to keep pushing the music beyond this or that." That’s part of the reason that Coldcut took the movement one step further into multimedia. Like Warhol’s Factory in the late ’60s, Coldcut incorporate visuals and art into their live performances, creating an experience that transcends simple beat music. "We started doing it at a time when you’d go to a rave and they’d play the world’s greatest ski crashes or something and we thought, ‘This is rubbish,’ and set out to create something that complemented the music, that was as flexible as the DJ process." In fact, many of today’s larger venue clubs owe a nod to Coldcut for reminding them of the need to create a virtual environment that enhances the music. "It’s got to be something that reflects what the DJ is doing. Seeing a DJ is watching a person play records – excepting of course the turntablists like Koala, it doesn’t quite capture the vitality. "In the ’60s, they really had something – the performer and the artist knew they wanted an environment to reflect them, musically and visually, so it was an event and thought went into it. Those were really the first virtual (multimedia) rooms." For electronic music to continue broadening minds, Black adds that the next step would be to write songs again, adding politics back into the equation. "We need to think. A good song makes you think. Classic jazz songs are (classic) because somebody could connect the dots between words and music. Beats and instrumental music are terrific, adding words, incorporating songwriters into the process and vocalists – that’s the thing that will make it more important to people."

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