Various Artists Ninja Tune XX presents King Cannibal 'The Way Of The Ninja'

"This mix was constructed on planes, trains, hotel rooms and in the studio throughout the months May, June, July using vinyl, CDs, Wavs and a DAT in Ableton Live and Logic.

A suitably diverse number of locations, formats and tools for a diverse label like Ninja Tune. A label that spans two thirds of my life, from putting DJ Vadim records on my christmas list (Santa decided to go with Dr Octagon - Instrumentalyst instead) to being turned away from a sold-out show to celebrate the tenth Ninja birthday, i've truly grown up to the sounds of this label's catalogue.

Ninja's history being so entwined with my own only makes a project like this harder. An ignorant person may not feel guilty about leaving out something from Bogus Order's Zen Breaks whose record was used for the static sound of needle hitting vinyl that appears a few times in this mix or for leaving out Drome. That problem is then compounded by the next - everyone knows the classics - Timber, Witness, Dark Lady... they've been on countless mixes before, but they need to be in here.. perhaps.. perhaps.... perhaps the way out is to get creative with these, to put a new spin on them. Ninja has a rich tradition of getting creative behind the turntables, from Coldcut's groundbreaking ' 70 Minutes Of Madness' Journeys By DJ mix to the diverse Solid Steel series, so why not try and up the ante a little?

So three months and a little over 250 tracks later i arrive at 74 minutes of music mixed, blended, sliced, diced, torn up and finally rendered to audio. A lot of classics, personal favourites, some slept on and a few exclusive acapellas and instrumentals care of the Ninja family. Sure there are some classics left off - The Crow immediately springs to mind, but as it stands this is The Way Of The Ninja', not only a Ninja Tune retrospective but the sound of my last 20 years."

King Cannibal