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Coldcut

Two London DJs, Matt Black and Jonathan More, who built pop records out of other records, took Eric B. & Rakim into the British charts, and founded Ninja Tune.

Origin
London, England
Years active
1987-present
Genres
electronic, breakbeat, hip hop, house
Labels
Ahead of Our Time, Arista, Ninja Tune
Also known as
Bogus Order, DJ Food

Two DJs and a sampler

In 1986 Matt Black was a computer programmer and Jonathan More an ex-art teacher, and both were part-time DJs on the rare groove scene. More also DJed on pirate radio, hosting the Meltdown Show on Kiss FM, and worked at Reckless Records on Berwick Street in London, where Black came in as a customer. Their first record together, Say Kids What Time Is It?, appeared on white label in January 1987. It set The Jungle Book's King of the Swingers over the break from James Brown's Funky Drummer. It is regarded as the first UK record built entirely of samples, and Spin called the pair the first Brit artists to really get hip-hop's class-cutup aesthetic. The pair joined forces on Solid Steel, a Kiss FM show that celebrated 25 years in 2013.

They took the name Coldcut and started a label, Ahead of Our Time, to release Beats + Pieces, assembled with cassette pause-button edits and later spliced tape. The Chemical Brothers have called it the first bigbeat record. Island Records then asked them to remix Eric B. & Rakim's Paid in Full. Released in October 1987, the Seven Minutes of Madness remix reached number 15 in the UK.

Hits and a first album

Coldcut moved toward house in February 1988 with Doctorin' the House, which introduced the singer Yazz and peaked at number six. Under the name Yazz and the Plastic Population they also produced The Only Way Is Up, a cover of a Northern soul song that spent five weeks at number one in August. Stop This Crazy Thing, with Junior Reid, reached number 21 in September. People Hold On, released in March 1989, helped launch the career of Lisa Stansfield.

The debut album, What's That Noise?, followed in April 1989 on Ahead of Our Time. Guests included Stansfield, Junior Reid, Queen Latifah, Yazz and Mark E. Smith of the Fall, whose raucous vocal drives (I'm) In Deep over an acid house backing. The album reached number 20 in the UK and was certified Silver. A second album, Some Like It Cold, came in 1990 with Queen Latifah on the single Find a Way, and the duo received the BPI Producer of the Year award that year.

Ninja Tune and the multimedia years

After the success with Stansfield, Coldcut signed to her label, Arista, and conflicts with the major label followed. The album Philosophy emerged in 1993 and did not chart. On their first tour of Japan in 1990, with Norman Cook, later Fatboy Slim, More and Black formed Ninja Tune as what they called a technocoloured escape pod from the creative control of major labels. It let them release music under other names, among them Bogus Order and DJ Food. The Coldcut name stayed with Arista, so there were no official Coldcut releases for three years.

Their mix album Journeys by DJ: 70 Minutes of Madness had come out in 1995, and the Coldcut name returned to the pair in 1996. In September 1997 they released Let Us Play!, their first album on Ninja Tune, which reached number 33. It came with a CD-ROM made by their multimedia group Hex, and the video for Timber became a fixture on MTV. Black built the VJAMM video software with Camart, and the live CCTV show played Glastonbury, Roskilde, Sonar and Montreux.

Later work

The Re:volution EP of 2001 carried scratches and samples of speeches by Tony Blair and William Hague. Sound Mirrors followed in January 2006, with guests including Roots Manuva, Saul Williams, Robert Owens, Annette Peacock and Jon Spencer. Pitchfork's Jess Harvell wrote that it was not a cut-and-paste DJ record but was constructed in the same way. Ninja Tune marked its twentieth year in 2010 with a book and a compilation album, and Coldcut released the Ninja Jamm app with Seeper.

Only Heaven, in 2016, was their first release in a decade, and Keleketla! in July 2020 paired them with the Johannesburg collective Keleketla! Library and a long list of guests. In March 2026 Ninja Tune and its publishing arm were acquired by Concord.

Members

Records

Songs

Eric B. & Rakim, Lisa Stansfield, The Fall, DJ Food

Where to go next

Official

Reference

Discography and data

Writing and criticism

Sources

  1. Coldcut, Wikipedia
  2. What's That Noise?, Wikipedia
  3. Ninja Tune, Wikipedia
  4. Coldcut biography, Ninja Tune
  5. Coldcut, Coldcut
  6. Sound Mirrors, Pitchfork (2006-03-12)
  7. Only Heaven, Pitchfork (2016-12-05)