1990s revisited: Mo Wax or Ninja Tunes?

firefinga

Well-known member
A bit more on the 1990s revisiting front:

Which one was better: Mo Wax or Ninja Tunes?
 
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baboon2004

Darned cockwombles.
I bought a Ninja Tunes compilation in a moment/seven minutes of madness, and it is the worst record I have ever owned. Tried by 12 is the only good thing they ever had ont he label apparently (though Coldcut themselves were quite good).
 

Leo

Well-known member
neither, really. not a fan of most ninja, have a more active dislike of the mo wax vibe.
 

pattycakes_

Can turn naughty
Xen Cuts was one of my fave compilations in my formative years. Listening back now maybe 25% still holds up which is not that bad. Solidsteel radio tapes were educational. Coldcut's Let Us Play was a real insight into the mindset of a generation that was fast fading by the end of the 90s. I had the VHS of the Hexstatic vídeos to go with the album and that left an indelible mark on my teenage brain. I knew that I'd missed 'it' only coming of age at the end of the 90s practically isolated from all forms of cool culture up in fkn Cumbria, so these things were like portals into worlds I'd only seen hints of on tv. Mo Wax was a bit too cool even though I guess Endtroducing is as important to me as anything on Ninja. But I think the original playful pranksterness of coldcut n co was lost somewhere along the way and ninja got a bit pseudo high brow. I think coldcut were out of the picture by then though. And it was definitely that side of things that attracted me as a young n hungry youth.

Side Q: Was J. Lavelle a proto-hipster?
 

Numbers

Well-known member
Xen Cuts was one of my fave compilations in my formative years. Listening back now maybe 25% still holds up which is not that bad. [...] But I think the original playful pranksterness of coldcut n co was lost somewhere along the way and ninja got a bit pseudo high brow. I think coldcut were out of the picture by then though. And it was definitely that side of things that attracted me as a young n hungry youth.

This sums up pretty much my experience as well. Never been very fond of Mo Wax. Utimately, not even of Endtroducing, although I really tried to like that album. Too much so, actually. I once convinced my mates to go see dj shadow (instead of Wu Tang....). We did not even notice when his show started, he sounded exactly like the filler music the festival played before he came up. Embarrasing for him, even more for me.
 

luka

Well-known member
Lavelle very much a proto hipster. I always say the beastie boys 'invented it' with Grand Royal but Lavelles collection of star wars figures etc is part of the same complex.
 

Slothrop

Tight but Polite
Mo Wax are much more focused, aren't they? I thought that in retrospect I might be exaggerating how much they epitomise that authenticity-obsessed soulboy fetishization of retro-blackness but I've just had a quick spin through their Discogs page and basically everything is on-brand.

There's a lot of the same thing to Ninja Tune, but it somehow doesn't feel quite as studied. Also they've been putting out more interesting stuff (The Bug, Helena Hauff, Actress) in recent years.
 

droid

Well-known member
Easy to forget that they had some rave chops back in the day. Wouldnt be too crazy to describe them as Rising High with more breaks. They split that 4/4 ambient techno sound onto their N-tone label around 93.




 

firefinga

Well-known member
In hindsight it's most definitley Ninja Tunes. I had a look at the discogs pages for both Labels, and Ninja Tunes simply had the better releases all in all. Amon Tobin, DJ Vadim, Wagon Christ, all enjoyable to my ears.

Admittedly, I still like DJ Shadow's stuff quite a lot, but Lavelle was too much of a hipster-type for my taste and also had bandwagon-jumping tendencies - Mo Wax trying so hard to profit from the Jungle/DnB Hype around 1995/6 , and then he even released some DJ Assault tracks around 1999/2000.
 

Pearsall

Prodigal Son
OK, I will go against the grain and say I prefer Mo' Wax to Ninja Tune. Ninja Tune releases were often a bit whimsical for my tastes, and I still listen to / enjoy a fair amount of the Mo' Wax back catalogue, especially the DJ Krush albums, plus they also put out some really excellent jungle remixes. Like this is an absolute ripper of a tune:


I think James Lavelle's persona has put a lot of people off the label, which is a shame because IMO there is a lot to enjoy there.
 

craner

Beast of Burden
Mo'Wax was all about the first Shadow and Krush tunes. Then Headz came out, and it was all shit, apart from the Shadow and Krush tunes.

Lavelle being a hipster, he was the Ur-Hipster. I haven't seen that recent film about him, but I suspect it has Spinal Tap elements to it. He is hilarious. He doesn't think he is, but he is.

Even in 94 this was overshadowed by the Beastie Boys and even then it was like, why are you listening to that rather than, say, Tical?

That was then, even, pre-internet, old days, hard to get stuff, hear stuff...no excuse! It wasn't THAT hard!
 

CrowleyHead

Well-known member
This is ironic to me because I think UNKLE have made good songs but DJ Shadow is worthless to me until he made Hyphy records.

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/nnShKvWxUO8" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>

Gimme this over The Endtroducing any day
 

blissblogger

Well-known member
neither, really. not a fan of most ninja, have a more active dislike of the mo wax vibe.

that sounds about right!

well, they both had a few good records but the label auras are off-putting to put it mildly

i saw an early version of the James Lavelle doc at a festival a few years ago and what amazed me was how many UNKLE albums there'd been.

the first was bad enough - so i guess i'd assumed that that was it - but no, no, they persisted after Psyence Fiction (what a title eh?). there's about FIVE other UNKLE albums!

and what's worse is that they get increasingly rocky, involving such as Josh Homme from Queens of the Stone Age

like Lavelle started buying into this really naff idea of rock rebellion and intensity and authenticity

while also convincing himself that being a curator really is the same as being a creator - that's there's nothing to writing songs, creating a band-sound, a band energy. you just have to have the taste, the connections, and the chutzpah

can't remember if Lavelle's the frontman on any of the songs, i've got a horrible feeling he is, but I'm not about to go and check

but what do you know? only a couple of days ago, a press release arrives in the inbox - there's a new UNKLE album coming out!
 

luka

Well-known member
I liked and probably still like early shadow. It's romantic, as detroit techno is romantic
 
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