Like master painters exploring a subject over a lifetimes work, Kevin Martin and Dylan Carlson The Bug and Earth, respectively have each been mining and defining their genres for more than 20 years. Theyre united by an interest in really an obsession with heaviness. They search for, examine and break the boundaries between beautiful and ugly, minimal and maximal, light and dark but The Bug and Earth always make music that is heavy in the most thrilling of ways. Earth, and its founding member Carlson, first appeared in the early 90s, and came to prominence with their Sub Pop release "Earth 2". An exercise in SLOW distorted droning minimalist riffage, their debut was the blueprint for what Dylan coined at the time "ambient metal, a style still being pushed forward on his latest Southern Lord release "Primitive And Deadly. Kevin Martin's career spans the same timeframe. Techno Animal, Ice, God, Razor X, King Midas Sound, and of course the The Bug moniker. All of which explore(d) the fringes of experimental and heavy music. With his recently released "Angels & Devils" LP receiving high praise across the board, he once again put his sonic stamp on the here and now with his collaborators Liz Harris (of Grouper), copeland, Miss Red, Gonjasufi, Flowdan, Death Grips, Justin Broadrick (Godflesh/Jesu), and Warrior Queen. These two uncompromising outsiders met via the visual artist Simon Fowler (Angels & Devils.) Simon arranged for Dylan to come to a King Midas Sound gig, but Martins trademark use of a powerful strobe light meant that the epileptic Carlson couldnt enter the room. Undeterred, Carlson featured King Midas Sounds music in a podcast, and the pair eventually decided to collaborate around Angels & Devils. The anglophile Carlson had long admired Martin, and other British sonic experimenters like Spacemen 3 or Pentangle. In turn, Martin understood the genius in Carlsons deconstruction of metal, and Earths boiling down of the genre to its core, elemental riffs. Martin saw that he and Dylan were both wanderers, and misfits in the world we live in. They were both huge fans of dub and the Velvet Underground, and they discussed how those influences could provide a combined template for something entirely new. When they finally began to record, it quickly became apparent that the music they made together needed room to stretch out and drone, to be its own thing. Two tracks eventually emerged, "Boa" & "Cold," and were released as a standalone EP, with Dylan's signature guitar sound weaving seamlessly around some of Kevin's most destructively heady bass explorations. Martin had decided to exclude those songs from Angels & Devils, as he felt They had developed a singular life of their own, outside of the identity of that album. Ninja Tune asked The Bug and Dylan Carlson to perform live in LA around the labels 25th anniversary, and Martin and Carlson took the opportunity to further the recording project in person. So The Bug vs Earth project holed up in Daddy Kevs legendary LA studio, with DJ Nobody engineering, for two very long days. Those recording sessions have resulted in the masterpiece that is Concrete Desert. Inspired by J.G. Ballards urban dystopias, and the Californian dream capitals sordid, fragmented underbelly, Martin says that the album is in some ways a Los Angeles-set companion piece to London Zoo. The records beautiful, chiming melodies are like shards of sonic light, glowing in currents of heavy bass darkness. There are pulsing soundscapes, ambient pinks and whites, and irresistible grooves. This is music that grips you entirely, and catches you in its lava-flow an astonishing, primal album of vast depth. In making it, Martin decided to break from The Bugs obsessive study of groove, tone and texture, and think more cinematically. The result is a wondrously visual album, akin to finding oneself wandering amongst the rocky red hills of the Californian deserts. In fact, he says, the album could be understood as reflecting a mistrust of Hollywoodisms, and the shadow of Hollywood fantasy that looms large over life in LA, and the USA in general. Dylans a master at amplifying the flavour of America, he says, but not the side we see in this Trump climate. For Martin, the American dream is like a nightmare under Trump but Dylan captures the best side of that dream, a utopian openess. I hear the writing of Cormac McCarthy in his music. His playing conjures deserts, and wide open spaces. In Concrete Desert, Earths sonic landscapes, its far horizons and vast spaces, are underpinned and propelled by Martins ear-worming rhythms and percussive genius. Justin Broadrick (Godflesh/Napalm Death/Techno Animal/Jesu/JK Flesh), the influential noisemaker and long time Martin cohort was invited to the sessions to make 2 tracks Dog and Pray, which all feature as bonus tracks. Broadrick grew up in the concrete desert of central Birmingham in the 70's/80s, and here he verbalises the void at the core of that urban hell. There is an additional third bonus track Another Planet available on the B side of the JK flesh vinyl and as a digital download. With live shows for THe Bug and Dylan Carlson planned for April 2017, this is just the beginning of The Bug vs Earth project. The record might be one designed to document alienation, but one listen is enough to show it, equally, to be a brilliant meeting of two kindred musical souls.

Coldcut have always been fascinated with the fusion of music and visual and so the idea of them curating an art project of Sound Mirrors (their stunning and critically acclaimed album) was a fitting one. In collaboration with freelance music video commissioner Vez they set about taking the medium of the music video out of the commercial realm and directly in to the heart and soul, making the work a wholly artistic expression of the music. Individual video directors were specifically invited to add their creativity to a song, visually interpreting the track in their own unique way. There was no brief, no pitching against other directors, it was to be their creativity under the spotlight and just one constant - they all had to work to the same budget and if possible Coldcut were not to feature in the work. It's all about taking the director out of the realm of painter for hire and giving them the creative recognition they so hugely deserve. The outcome is a stunningly diverse collection of highly creative music videos directed by a range of different directors from the famous to the unknown. The flipside of this release is an audio CD collection of remixes of the singles taken from Sound Mirrors, as well as additional remixes of a bonus track "The State We're In" and the Coldcut classic, "People Hold On".

DJ Food and DK, the current main movers of the long running and much-loved "Solid Steel" radio show and club night, have laid down a dizzying, kaleidoscopic pile-up of musical styles and spoken word eclectica, all pieced together, layered and re-treated with the sort of attention to detail that only comes from nerdy obsession and music collections that need reinforced floor supports to be held safely.

After announcing himself to a worldwide audience with his Solid Steel mix ON THE WHEELS OF SOLID STEEL, Japan's DJ Kentaro returns with his full production debut, ENTER. Forty minutes of beautifully structured beats, musical smarts and an occasional smattering of turntable magic, the record also features guest turns from the Pharcyde, Spank Rock, New Flesh, Little Tempo, Hifana and Fat Jon.

Twelve inch vinyl pressing of this 2007 collaboration between DJ Kentaro and Spank Rock. Features five versions of 'Free' (Main Version, Instrumental, Acapella, Armani XXXchange Remix and Bodyshake Remix) plus 'Scratch It' and 'Tosagare Highway High (Bass Wanna Be a Singer)'. Ninja Tune.

Japanese turntable legend DJ Kentaro's pair of remixes re-establishs his impeccable drum 'n' bass credentials. Kentaro is best known as a phenomenal turntablist and former DMC World Champion, but on his debut album, Enter, he was more concerned with showing his muscle as a music producer.

2014 full length from the New York-based producer/electronic musician aka Drew Lustman. "In the Wild, like so much of Drew Lustman's output, is cut through with a wry smile in track titles like "Some Jazz Shit" and it's bubbling, gurgling palette of sound. Here more than ever before, Lustman has let go of the need to control or refine his playful urges in the production process to come up with tracks that are frothy and full of life, taking unpredictable, impulsive twists - yet despite himself, he's also apologetic about their strangeness, emblazoning the album's back cover with the word "SORRY" and writing a poem in lieu of a press release that ends with an apology. Hence, the hashtags: he's defiant in the face of his compulsion to apologise, and determined not to filter himself (sorry)".-Dazed and Confused magazine.

Compassion", the follow-up to 2013's critically lauded debut Engravings, will be released on 5th May 2017 via Ninja Tune. The album will be followed by a set of multidisciplinary projects expanding the themes and concepts across wider disciplines, overseen by Forest Swords own Dense Truth, an experimental art studio and record label. Compassion" is a response to the uncertain, aggressive new world were experiencing and communicating within, distilling it into a unique sound territory: Barnes' exploration of the mid-point between ecstasy and melancholy, artificial and human feels timely and affecting; a celebration of primal connections, life itself, and an anxious glance at the direction we're heading. The result is an assured, compelling, vital body of work, tying together the ancient and future: weaving swathes of buzzing digital textures, field recordings, clattering beats and distorted jazz sax with fizzing orchestral arrangements. The album shifts from 'The Highest Flood's skeletal bounce to 'Panic's claustrophobic paranoia; the rapturous hyperballad 'Arms Out' to the windswept and cinematic Knife Edge, navigating through the orchestral glitch of 'War It' to decaying jazz thump of Raw Language. The album is equal parts disorienting and immersive, balancing bold sweeping gestures and crumbling textures; tracks seemingly disintegrating and reassembling at points across the album. Blending both digital and specially recorded brass, strings and vocals, Barnes's processing never truly makes it clear what's new or old, sampled or unique, constantly blurring and toying with the line between digital and acoustic. The 'mixed media' approach extends to the record's packaging and design, all directed by Barnes himself. The visuals intersect many of the albums themes: bodies, connection, language and movement with the deluxe booklet featuring portraits of first-wave immigrants who travelled from Barnes' home port of Liverpool to New York. Central to this enthralling world is Compassion", an album that's as weighty as it is vulnerable, sculpting the most striking parts of his previous work into something that feels urgent and necessary, and cementing Barnes as one of the UK's most significant electronic artists and composers.

New 2018 album! Shadowy techno 'n' hazy synth noise from the Hamburg producer, for fans of Daphni and Actress. On Ninja Tune.

One of the key acts if not the key act of the middle ten years of NINJA TUNE's two decade journey, from 1995's debut 'Remedies' until their last album for Ninja, 2005's 'Take London', Jake Wherry and Ollie Teeba used their time with Ninja Tune to effortlessly combine their love of hip hop, funk, jazz and sixties film soundtracks into a widescreen, musical approach to the beat that was as raw as it was intelligent. Their choice of musical collaborators also shows their love for and understanding of the craft of rapping. From JEAN GRAE who worked with them across five of their albums - and who they plucked from relative obscurity in the mid-nineties New York underground - to the likes of MF DOOM and ROOTS MANUVA (long before either was a cool name to drop).

This is the 5th record from one of the most established and long time members of the Ninja Tune roster. This is a must hear for experimental electronic hip-hop fans. Limited edition version includes a bonus 5-track CD.

3 x 12" Vinyl.

Significant Changes is a blend of vintage drum machine funk drawing heavily on Chicagos house blueprint - a natural progression from a string of EPs both solo and alongside her friend and mentor DJ Fett Burger.Hailing from the small town of Grand Forks, British Columbia - some 6 hours outside Vancouver - Jayda Guy grew up surrounded by nature, which sparked an early interest in biology. In 2018 she completed her Masters in Resource and Environmental Management specializing in environmental toxicology, wherein she specifically studied the effects of human activity on the Salish Sea killer whales (orcas) of Vancouver, BC. It was also the year that she finished recording her debut album as Jayda G - Significant Changes.

Kelis describes her sixth album as “a kind of unspoken lovefest”, involving two unlikely partners. On the one hand, there is Kelis Rogers, who first came to prominence singing the hook of Ol’ Dirty Bastard’s 1999 hit "Got Your Money". This was the visually and sonically compelling 20 year-old whose debut album Kaleidoscope helped usher in the wave of sharp, thrillingly futuristic R&B that dominated the charts in the early Noughties, as exemplified by her global hit, "Milkshake". On the other there is Dave Sitek, guitarist in acclaimed Brooklyn experimentalists TV On The Radio and producer to a certain kind of smart, indie band (the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Foals and Liars to name a few).

A fearful, uncomfortable but admiring and heartfelt round of applause, please, for Ninja Tune's first (only') hard man - King Cannibal aka Zilla aka Dylan Richards. Coming through with a razor-edged, utterly uncompromising industrial mash-up of sounds and rhythms from dancehall and drum & bass, Radio 1's Mary-Anne Hobbs has already declared his music to be "too dark!" And that was before she had heard "Let the Night Roar," a record so obsessed with violence in it's many manifestations that he named it after a quote from nutter-cultist Jim Jones (that's the man behind the Jonestown Massacre).

Record Store Day exclusive.