Ninja Tune Records Vinyl, CDs & Cassettes

Matt Black and Jonathan More, the duo known as Coldcut, started Ninja Tune in London in 1990 because they needed a label that would release their own music the way they wanted, and nobody else was going to do it for them. The name came out of a trip to Japan; the aesthetic came out of hip-hop and electronic music; and a genuine commitment to doing things sideways made the label they built around those instincts one of the most important independent operations in the world.

The early catalog was rooted in downtempo and instrumental hip-hop, DJ Food, The Herbaliser, Amon Tobin, Kid Koala, Mr. Scruff, artists who were building something patient and textured and genuinely unusual at a time when most dance music was pointed in a very different direction. The Big Dada hip-hop imprint brought Roots Manuva and a generation of UK rappers into the family. The Cinematic Orchestra has been making some of the most emotionally resonant orchestral electronic music of the last twenty-five years under this roof.

What Ninja Tune grew into from there is a label that prioritizes quality over genre. Bonobo's Migration was Grammy nominated and charted in the top five in the UK. Bicep's Isles hit number two. Floating Points. Young Fathers, who won the Mercury Prize. ODESZA reached the top three on the US Billboard charts through the Counter Records imprint. Black Country, New Road is arriving as one of the most talked-about bands in British music.

The records in this collection cover a wide range of sound, but they share a commitment to craft and a refusal to be predictable that has defined the label since Coldcut pressed their first release thirty-five years ago.