After Action Report: Ninja Tune XX 02/10/10

Twenty years for a record label is a lifetime, let alone an independent like Ninja Tune, and Matt Black and Jon Moore (label founders and the team behind Coldcut) should be incredibly proud of their achievements as they reflect on the last two decades. The label has brought together so many incredible artists, that it's quite scary to imagine the musical landscape without it. In celebration of this impressive anniversary, Ninja Tune have been running events all around the world, with the Ninja Tune XX night at the Ewer Street Car Park offering the most impressive of lineups.



From a personal point of view, Ninja Tunes' artists, albums and compilations have provided the soundtrack to a great number of important moments in my life and very many happy memories, and I was looking forward to Ninja Tune XX as an opportunity to bask in the golden glow of nostalgia, as much an opportunity to see some of the artists whose music I'd been enjoying live for the first time.

As a celebration of Ninja Tune therefore, XX certainly didn't disappoint. I lost count of the number of times tunes such as Timber, True Skool and Witness were dropped across the night, and it's always good to hear them played out. Also, the design team had done a fantastic job in converting the soggy Ewer Street railway arches into a Ninja Tune museum, with some awesome graffiti and design work from Mutate Britain.

Unfortunately it was all a bit of a shambles getting in to Ewer Street, so whilst we queued for about an hour in the rain, we managed to miss Kentaro and Bonobo, who are both fantastic DJs, and more disappointingly Kid Koala and Hexstatic, who I've never been able to see before. This did start the night on a bit of a low, but fortunately the always awesome combo of Strictly Kev and DK picked things up and soon everything seemed to be alright after all.

The DJ Food sets have always epitomised the live Ninja Tune experience for me, running the perfect mix of hip hop, jazz and electronica, with enough deviations into rock, soul and most importantly D&B to keep the crowd dancing from start to finish. Mr Scruff also played an incredible set, and one of the best I've seen for a while. I hate to say it, because I love his standard six hour sets, but the two hour slot seemed to make everything a lot tighter, with Scruff running out a constant stream of his own big tracks, and plenty of Ninja classics.

Over in Arch Three, Daedelus provided another of the evening's highlights, giving a wonderful live performance that managed to be chilled out, whilst thoroughly ravey at the same time. After this, The Bug seemed to be much louder and more destructive, although the real structural damage was reserved for the D&B mayhem produced by The Qemeists who closed Arch One, and King Cannibal whose face smashing dub/D&B mash was as ear-wreckingly heavy as ever.

As with Wang's 10th Birthday last year, Ewer Street remains a great venue for providing a watered-down simulation of the old skool illegal rave experience that many of us missed out on due to being at primary school when the scene first blew up, but it was really annoying to miss out on so many artists because of the poorly organized door system. Thanks to hitting the Brixton academy last week, the beer prices actually seemed quite reasonable at £3.50, which is in fact a terrible state of affairs, but as with petrol, beer prices aren't going to go anywhere but up over the next few years, so there's no point whinging about it (although I will continue to do so).

All in all however, a brilliant night, and a fantastic celebration of Ninja Tune. I hope that I live long enough to make it to the 30th anniversary party, and that Ninja Tune can keep doing what they do so well.

NINJAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!