Xen Cuts

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Ninja Tune - purveyors of genre busting dance music or peddlers of downtempo lazy beat collages for stoner samplespotters ? Well, as usual the truth is probably somewhere in the middle, but this 2 CD comp from Ninja released in celebration of a decade of releases has both ends of the spectrum ably represented. All the usual suspects are here; Amon Tobin, Herbaliser, Luke Vibert, Coldcut, DJ Vadim, Kid Koala etc etc, all showing up with a selection of mostly unreleased material and alternate mixes. It's a mostly engaging selection, starting off with a few slices of prime HipHop. Highlights of this batch are DJ Vadim & Sarah Jones' 'Your Revolution', an anti-sexist postscript to Gil Scott Heron's 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised', Herbaliser & Latryx's '8 point plan' and the paranoid double bass matrix of Roots Manuva & Amon Tobins's 'Saboteur'. A few instrumental cuts are interspersed; Coldcut's usual witty collage still holds up, despite the recycling of the usual elements and old jokes, and Jimpster contribute a lush, sleek take on the Irresistible Forces's 'Nepalese Bliss'.

CD2 features the usual selection of jazz inflected grooves; one of the standouts is Neptune's 'Soul Pride'. A collaboration between the Cinematic Orchestra's J Swinscoe and DJ Food's PC, it forsakes the smoother pastures of Swinscoe's 'Motion' album (no relation) for a tougher, edgier ride driven by an irresistible live groove. Top stuff. PC delivers another gem with DJ Food's remix of 'The Ageing Young Rebel', their collaboration with poet Ken Nordine. Where the original placed Nordine's dark, sardonic tale of attempted hipsterdom over an obvious, stiff backdrop of Cubase jazz, the remix swings harder with a darker, more minimal mix of percussion, languid flute, abstracted bleeps and prepared piano. Nordine's rich word jazz is consequently given much more space to breathe - a fantastic piece. Flanger are predictably great - Atom Heart's psyched distorted synth solo echoes some of Mike Ratledge's more wigged out episodes with Soft Machine. More overtly jazzed moments are provided by Loka (a name previously unknown to me) and the marvellous Chris Bowden, while Max & Harvey offer some lovely blissed out ambient jazz to take the compilation to a close.

Though nothing much on the record is offensive enough to promote excessive use of the skip button, a few tracks don't add up to anything much - Up Bustle and Out, Mr Scruff and Luke Vibert all lack excitement, heart or much in the way of sonic interest, and Animals on Wheels (first heard on the wonderfully deranged 'Spunk Jazz' comp from a few years ago) sound strangely normalised on the uneventful (but brilliantly titled) 'Build A Church With Your Fear'. Clifford Gilberto and Amon Tobin deliver their usual brand of attractive, painstakingly constructed hyperjazz, but where the likes of Flanger take the genre to a new level, Gilberto and Tobin's collages are easy to admire but difficult to love, which for me anyway is always the danger with this music. As is usual for the label, the sleeve notes are packed with tongue in cheek polemics which always seem to suggest a more revolutionary approach to the music that actually exists. Still, I'm glad they're there. Here's to the next ten years.