You Don't Know Pt 1: Amon Tobin

You never know with Ninja Tune. Here is music with unpredictable, lawless eloquence, aka art for art's sake. A combo of technical genius and passion gets you a long way, and at eighteen years of age, this independent record label is almost as old as yours truly. It's daunting learning that during this lifespan they've amassed and fathered a collective of over sixty fiercely innovative acts, each with its own claim in the future of music. They've spawned thriving sister labels Counter, Big Dada and NTone (sadly no longer with us, but boast early releases from artists such as Fink and Hexstatic), and to this day pursue the kind of democratic profit splicing ethic with their artists, which tends to cast major record labels into a miserly pit of shame. In an interview at www.themilkfactory.co.uk, Luke Vibert's (Ninja Tune/Rephlex/Warp) slightly exasperated insight into the Ninja Tune method describes them as "a bit too nice and too democratic... they really listen to everyone's opinion." So even if the pragmatics prove frustrating, Vibert importantly exposes the ethos of quality over quantity which makes the self-directed Ninja Tune such an inspiration. And after near two decades of producing only the cr'me de la cr'me, they've accumulated a trove which refuses to halt in its evolution.

The fifth in the Ninja Cuts series, You Don't Know, is a vivid scrapbook featuring Ninja Tune, Big Dada and Counter, and blends the expressly nostalgic with the most forward thinking releases. Rowdy dubstep danceoff Poison Dart sits alongside leftfield hip-hoppers cLOUDDEAD's eternally queer Physics of a Unicycle, forcing you to listen to each out of context, and with new ears. On further reflection, it appears that regeneration via re-contextualising could well be the template - if there is one - for the album. In our interview, surrealist beatmaster Amon Tobin muses that "there is a lot of creative force in misinterpretation. I don't know what this says about musical tastes, but as far as processing information I think it's all just personal perception anyway. If you distance yourself from music's cultural references and signifiers you can sometimes be left with a clear appreciation for rhythm and melody. Then you are free to mis-appropriate and re-contextualise as you please."

Tobin's Bloodstone (The Foley Room, 2007) is one of the Big Tunes which features on CD 1. "I haven't got anything to do with the track selection on the comp. Glad that's on there though, I like that tune!"

Tell us about your trips to the zoo and experiments with animal noises: why does non-human communication interest you particularly? "I got really into layering sounds I'd imagine finding the components for in different places. For instance in theory I might be able to find the 'sub' component of a sound from an engine and then the mid's from an animal or bird and then the highs etc. The idea with the safari trip was to get some lions and tigers, but to also make the most of the day and see what else we could find. We managed to get access to the more confined night habitats of some of the big cats for close up recordings which is what you see in the DVD."

There are gargantuan hits from the past and present, quirky remixes and the fanatic's dream on You Don't Know: unreleased gems from the back catalogue and previews of album releases set to blow later this year. The Long Lost - electro champ Daedelus and his wife Laura as a folk act - unleash their misty eyed The Art of Kissing early from this year's forthcoming album, and also just for the compilation, the naked beauty of strings and dulcet female vocals in Max & Harvey's previously unreleased Thieves. One interesting and slightly uncomfortable hybrid, which does grow on you, is the Tiga remix of Coldcut's Walk A Mile…, the deep groove of latin-laced house broken by vocal distortion and an edgy whirring. It is, in short, exactly what you'd expect from Tiga and Coldcut, though the two together are as likely a combination as flapjacks and bacon, which is presumably why it appears to work. Surprise is the element, as clarified by Amon Tobin regarding his future plans which are to "work with Doubleclick, Sway and Ms.Jade on a killer new kind of hip-hop record and freak everybody out." Get your freak on.