Coldcut featuring Roots Manuva: "True Skool" Video
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This video features a tune showing off Coldcut's eerie sense of melody, with a perfectly suited video. This is from the "Zen DVD" collection, available from Ninja Tune.
This video is from "Zen TV," a collection of videos from Ninja Tune that includes some of the biggest figures in electronic
music, paired with some of the most creative directors in the world.
Since the mid-nineties and the groundbreaking Stealth parties at the Blue Note in Hoxton Square, Ninja has been almost as well
respected for its engagement with visuals as it has for its audio. Now at last, the two come together on this massive
retrospective of almost a decade of experiment, innovation, humour and weirdness.
Let's get the spec out of the way first.
The ZenTV DVD has twice the capacity of a normal DVD, containing as it does 35 promo videos from the label, a fifteen minute
audiovisual mix and a 30 minutes audio mix from Hexstatic. And as if that wasn't enough, the DVD has a state-of-the-art menu
system which means you can watch the videos either in the order we intended, randomly, or chronologically from the oldest to the
newest or the newest to the oldest. You can also look up any specific act and check out their videos and album art. Or just leave
a gallery of some of Ninja's finest covers running in the corner of the room as a kind of ambient art installation dahlink? Mwah.
But that just scratches the surface, really, cos after all, in the kingdom of the blind content is king. Or something like that.
You know the music is going to be good (we hope you know the music is going to be good), but what about the visuals?
Well, one advantage with not having hit records (Coldcut's "Beats & Pieces" remains our one top forty for 12 years work) is that
you don't have to worry about getting your promos shown on daytime MTV or TOTP or any of those hellholes of visual mediocrity
where all the bands have to look fabulous and if they don't, well you better make sure you put some models in there who do? So
instead, you can be (whisper it) creative.
Which is why some of the top up-and-coming names in video direction and animation have worked for Ninja in the last few years.
Because they know that if they pitch an interesting, visually striking, innovative idea, they will be left to get on with it
without interference. Established directors like Alexander Rutterford (Amon Tobin, now working for Radiohead) Sam Arthur (DJ
Vadim) as well as young turks like Conkerko (Bonobo). Fizzy Eye made their first music video for Wagon Christ (the truly
excellent "Receiver") and have since gone on to do commercials for Honda, proving that a track record with Ninja doesn't ruin
your business prospects.
Beyond this, artists like Kid Koala and Jaga Jazzist often even commission their own videos, working with close associates to
find the perfect match between their sound and the director's vision. As if that wasn't enough, there are artists on the label
who are intimately involved in the creation of their own videos, whether it's the Scruff cartoons that make up the basis of his
Cosgrove Hall-animated "Sweet Smoke," the pioneering audiovisual cut-ups of Hexstatic and Coldcut, Funki Porcini's satires of
adverts or his weird, otherworldly concrete moving abstracts.
Overall, since those early audiovisual mash-ups, the driving force behind all of Ninja's visual work has been that the video is
not merely an unrelated promo item to sell a single but should be intimately related to the sounds it represents. The budgets may
be small, some results may be more effective than others, but there's no denying that the attempts to realise this ideal are
never less than interesting.
Are you sitting comfortably?
Click here for the rest of the exciting videos from this collection.
This short is from Ninja Tune's "Zen TV" compilation, and it features a very excited Japanese girl.
Coldcut: "Everything Is Under Control"
"Everything Is Under Control" is a brutal, low-slung, electro-rock beast.
Toots and the Maytals: "Get Up, Stand Up: Live"
Toots is one of the true architects of reggae - so much so that "Do the Reggay," a 1968 single by Toots and his group, the Maytals, is credited with giving the genre its name. Classic songs written and recorded by Toots and the Maytals have been covered by the likes of the Clash and the Specials, and the group was featured in reggae's greatest breakthrough event - "The Harder They Come," the 1972 film that became an international sensation. The all-star guests on TRUE LOVE range from legends like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Bonnie Raitt to younger stars including No Doubt, the Roots, and Phish's Trey Anastasio. The caliber of these collaborators reveals the impact that Toots has had on several generations of rockers and rappers, while appearances from reggae icons Bunny Wailer and Marcia Griffiths show the respect granted to the man who might be the music's greatest living vocalist. At the heart of it all is that voice - drenched in soul, rooted in gospel, and still breathtakingly powerful after almost four decades in the spotlight.
Toots and the Maytals (featuring Shaggy): "Bam Bam"
Toots is one of the true architects of reggae - so much so that "Do the Reggay," a 1968 single by Toots and his group, the Maytals, is credited with giving the genre its name. Classic songs written and recorded by Toots and the Maytals have been covered by the likes of the Clash and the Specials, and the group was featured in reggae's greatest breakthrough event - "The Harder They Come," the 1972 film that became an international sensation. The all-star guests on TRUE LOVE range from legends like Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, and Bonnie Raitt to younger stars including No Doubt, the Roots, and Phish's Trey Anastasio. The caliber of these collaborators reveals the impact that Toots has had on several generations of rockers and rappers, while appearances from reggae icons Bunny Wailer and Marcia Griffiths show the respect granted to the man who might be the music's greatest living vocalist. At the heart of it all is that voice - drenched in soul, rooted in gospel, and still breathtakingly powerful after almost four decades in the spotlight.
2009 Porsche Boxster and Cayman
At the 2008 LA Auto Show, Porsche subtlety redesigned the Boxster and the Cayman, but made sure that the two cars stayed true to their roots.
The Linksys Range Plus wireless router WRT110 is an intriguing and unconventional idea for wireless routers that comes true, in terms of both design and features.
With one foot in the early roots of her career as a "dance artist" and the other foot planted firmly into the sound of "future disco", Madonna returned to the clubs with a vengeance when CONFESSIONS ON A DANCE FLOOR was released by Warner Bros. Records on November 15, 2005.
Recorded in London, Confessions features songs primarily co-written and co-produced by Madonna and Stuart Price, producer, mixer and DJ-supreme ( Les Rythmes Digitales, Jaques Le Cont). Price was Madonna's musical director on her 2002 Drowned World Tour and last summer's Reinvention Tour. Additional producers and co-writers include Henrik Jonback, Grammy Award-winning team Bloodshy & Avant, and Anders Bagge + Peer Astrom from Murlyn Music collective. In addition Mirwais Ahmadzai, the producer of Madonna's last two albums American Life and Music, contributed two songs and co-produced one track. The song "Jump" was co written by previous Madonna collaborator, artist, and producer Joe Henry (Don't Tell Me).
"The Best of the Electric Company" DVD clip: Letterman
Hey You Guys! For the first time EVER on DVD, The Best Of The Electric Company arrives in a deluxe 4-disc set! With roots in the Motown Sound, Broadway and "The Carol Burnett Show," The Electric Company became cultural phenomenon in the '70s as the wildly popular educational television show with big laughs and an even bigger message... teaching children basic reading and grammar skills, with the emphasis on fun. Now, the best episodes are all here in true nostalgic glory, for the first time ever on an expansive 4-DVD set! Impressive cast (such as Bill Cosby, Morgan Freeman, Rita Moreno and many others) embodied characters and enlivened skits the whole world knows and loves: Easy Reader, Fargo North Decoder, Jennifer of the Jungle, Paul the Gorilla, The Adventures of Letterman, Love Chair, the Short Circus segments featuring Spider-Man and The Roadrunner and much more!
