Ninja Tune Night In LA: Blockhead, Yppah and AmpLive All Electrify The Echo
Living in the Los Angeles has its fair share of perks. Aside from the endless sunshine, pretty people and beautiful beaches, I know of few cities that can fill a music bill quite like the City of Angels can. Artists are always down to come to town and sometimes, such as on a night like this one, we get really lucky and they bring along some of their like-minded friends. Fortunately for us this is exactly what unfolded at The Echo recently, when the fine folks at Ninja Tune (which is one of the premier independent labels and a personal favorite of mine), decided to throw a little shindig. They brought out some of their best, as Blockhead and Yppah performed live alongside Amplive of the mighty Zion I and the trio of artists joined forces to rock a sold out Silverlake crowd to their beat-craving core.
I was thrilled to hear that one of the best beat conductors in the business, Blockhead (or Tony as he likes to be called), was back with a new album and was bringing his live show to town. I brought Mr. Maximus along for the ride and also managed to make photographer and fan, Upper Hands, a very happy man when he heard one of his favorite producers was playing live. In fact, he even cut his date short to come shoot for us. As we made our way inside The Echo, we were all soon awash in a sea of fellow fans but a far cry from the crowd I had encountered at the SmokeOut Festival.
Accompanied by DJ Signify, who added scratching on the turntables, Blockhead mixed up his back catalog into a continuous hour-long set that featured plenty of other musical surprises and appearances.
“This is me on Ableton kind of weaving together an hour-long song basically,” Tony explained to me backstage. “It takes parts from my music and then you’ll get some Nina Simone...so it’s a constantly changing 50-minute song.”
I was particularly enamored by his inclusion of Chris Isaak’s sinful “Baby Did A Bad, Bad Thing,” which I don’t think has ever sounded better than over some Blockhead beats.
It’s the type of show, that if you’re a fan of my music and you know it, you’ll catch stuff and then it will be flipped in a way that you’ve never really heard before because it’s being mixed with a totally different vibe.
Tony added, "Now if you’ve never heard my music, there’s definitely going to be stuff that will perk your ears up. It’s nothing if not melodic and a real journey.”
That’s exactly what unfolds on his recent release, The Music Scene. Tony has delivered an album that builds on his previous two offerings but pushes things into entirely new directions as well, such as on the standout closer, “Farewell Spaceman.” It’s a track that Tony calls, “one my favorite songs I’ve ever made. It starts off on this “Leave it To Beaver” style and then it just goes into space.”
Much like on his previous work, Blockhead is still a sample wizard and shows his skills on tracks like the Sinning In LA favorites, “Hell Camp,” and “Attack The Doctor,” or the delightfully devious “The Daily Routine.” Each cut is brimming over with fresh ideas (and beats of course), but it’s on songs such as “Farewell Spaceman,” that make it becomes evident that Blockhead is a master at creating cinematic instrumental music that.
This album is different. I feel like all of my albums are but at the same time they share qualities that they kind of connect every album together.
The foundation of everything I do has always been the same. I just build and build, but with this one I kind of attacked it from a different angle,” Tony told me. “What I’ve heard from other people is that it’s more along the lines of Music By Cavelight, in the mood but it’s nothing like that in the song structures. It’s the first time I’ve used this program, Abelton Live, in which I I took about thirty beats or so and kind of grouped them together and then made a track out of like three beats, just sort of connecting them together into a complete song that has a beginning, middle and end.” He paused for a second before surmising, “It doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever done but at the same time it does. It still has the same emotive qualities but it definitely feels like more a journey because there’s no eight bars alike on the whole album, it’s just constant layers.”
Before Blockhead came on, AmpLive, one half of the seminal hip-hop group, Zion I, delivered a standout DJ set, where Chase was quick to point out the fantastic reworking of Radiohead’s “Videotape,” that AmpLive had done. This was a huge hit amongst the crowd, and it also features our good friend, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien.
“I’m starting to do way more production sets and just more sets that are instrumental, so the fact that people are into it is a good thing,” AmpLive shared with me after his set. “I had a good amount of Zion I fans here, so that was good and it was tight.”
We then discussed that fantastic remix project he did for Radiohead’s In Rainbows album. The release was such a colossal hit on the web that the band officially commissioned him to do a proper album and he ended up re-imagining eight tracks in total. I also got the scoop that the Zion I outfit will reunite to tour next year but both members are staying busy in the meantime.
“Zumbi is working on a solo project called The Burners and I got an album coming out called Murder at the Discotheque. It’s an electro, hip-hop kind of thing. It’s very grimy and it has a real dubstep feel to it. I definitely just try to keep things different and live and always push myself into doing all kinds of different stuff.”
Since AmpLive was so down with the grime, I had to tell him about the story I had done on the boys from PANTyRAiD, but it turns out he was already well-versed in their signature sound.
“I’ve actually been talking to them about a remix,” he divulged. “They’re cool dudes.”
As we later rocked out to Blockhead’s beats, I ran into another of Ninja Tune’s creations. Yppah (or, if you wish, Joe) had earlier in the evening delivered a standout selection of tunes himself, and was a bit nervous about his DJ set. Not only was the native Texan venturing out of the Lone Star State for the first time,but he doesn’t really DJ in the first place, and he normally plays his organic-electronic tunes live with a five-piece band.
“I was coming out here thinking at first we were going to drive out from Texas with the five-piece band,” he shared with me. “The last album I did, I made it in terms of doing the live band thing and it didn’t work out, so I had to throw something together in like two days but it turned out pretty good in my ears and the fact that people were stoaked about it was really cool.”
I discovered Yppah’s work recently while digging through my iTunes, and found that I actually had several of his songs in my vast collection. Yppah’s sound is very much the reason why I still love the Ninja Tune label so much, as not only are there the trademark broken beats present, but much like his labelmates, Blockhead and Bonobo, each of these beat-driven cuts always contains memorable melodies.
But what about that name though?
“It was supposed to be happy backwards but no one ever got it,” Joe laughed. “What’s funny is that I had a mislabeled MP3 of a Boards of Canada track and it was the word happy backwards, so I thought it was cool. I hate the name now though because I get so much criticism for it. People will say, ‘Hey, your music is cool but I almost didn’t listen to to it because of the name.’”
By the time his set was done, everyone in attendance knew his name (Yppah, not Joe), even if they didn’t exactly know his tunes. As it turns out, he just can’t bring himself to include any of his original songs when he spins.
“I have tried to put together sets like that but I always end up cutting out my songs and putting in something else because I’d rather play them live,” Joe said.
Out of everything I’ve ever done, that is the most rewarding thing but pretty much everything I played is what I want my next album to sound like.
The sounds that were filling The Echo on this night were unquestionably fresh and undeniably Ninja Tune. Here’s hoping in the future more like-minded labels will continue show the City of Angels what happens when people with crazy names (myself and Chase included) come together to make things happen.
Listen: http://www.myspace.com/theblockishot
Label: http://www.ninjatune.net/home/
Photos By: Upper Hands
