Customer Reviews

Zen TV DVD: Video Retrospective

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I have been a die-hard fan of Coldcut & other artists from his record label Ninja Tune since the early days (1994-95). The very first enhanced CD every commercialy was by ColdCut. The CD had videos like "Timber" which is amazing, Unlike anything I had seen before & Unlike the garbage we see on MTV. The videos on that were in highly compressed QuickTime (.mov) format. I searched all these years for those on tape or dvd. Finally....here it is.

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Zen TV on DVD is great. It has cool videos you can't find anywhere else. They used to play these type of videos on amp on MTV at 1 am. I loved that show. The highlights of this DVD in my opinion are Animal Chin, Sweetsmoke, Get A Move On, Timber, Rockit Soul, Sculpture, Pinball # Count, Sunflower Girl, and The Hexstatic Music Mash-up. All the videos are worth watching though. The RARE artsy VR music videos make for good conversation or just to trance out to. I enjoy the album sleeve gallery music and the 60 minute mix. All in all it makes for a unique musical experience. If you're bored with the same ol', let this stimulate your mind.

I really didnt' get into Ninja TUne till I got this dvd. Amon Tobin is amazing and I have a lot of respect for Cold Cut. This dvd has great music and its all around. You cannot rush through this dvd if you're trying for visual content. You might get bored and frustrated and miss out on the great music. A lot of it isn't that exciting unless your seeing "verbal" by Amon Tobin. Some videos are a bit cheesy or really not that interesting, or just downright weird. But so much of the music is so experimental without any sort of subject matter you can basically do any dam visual you want for the videos. So its great if your a ninja tune fan i'm sure, but I would really just sit down and listen and have the videos as an extra goodie for your listening pleasure.

I just don't see why people are so nitpicky with this compilation. If you know ninja tune acts then you will know that Jaga Jazzist, Mr. Scruff, Wagonchrist, Amon Tobin, Funky Porcini and Kid Koala make excellent, intelligent videos. As a matter of fact, I find none of the videos to be as 'mindless' as other reviewers say; Ninja Tune is a label of intelligent, thought provoking music and, although some vids may be a little dull, none of the vids stray away from the songs' conceptuality. In short, all the vids have a short story quality to them, like a visual narrative that aids the songs along. This is no "beyond the mind's eye", i.e. tacky trance computer-generated visuals. After all, it's ninja tune for chrissake!

Although there is a range of reviews here, I'm pretty sure it's inconsequential: Ninja Tune fans are going to be this regardless. With that in mind, here are a few observations.

I'd say that these videos are not as good as some reviewers indicate, but also not as bad as some reviewers say. It really is pretty mixed. There are some that are incredibly inspired such as the videos for Mr. Scruff, Amon Tobin, Hexstatic, and the Cinematic Orchestra. Others are decent, while a few are pretty lame. The good news is, the music is uniformly excellent. This is a nice retrospective of Ninja Tune highlights and that alone probably justifies buying the DVD.

I can't fault a lot of these groups for having less than amazing videos. It's not like they're huge artists with big budgets. Sure, Bjork can hire amazing directors to make amazing videos, but who is going to step up and direct for Kid Koala? It's unrealistic to expect amazing videos. Furthermore, the chopped up public domain and stock footage that comprise many of these videos is actually very similar to how the music is constructed. Instead of creating music out of old records, they're creating videos out of old video footage. It fits the gritty, breakbeat aesthetic of Ninja Tune.

One reviewer pointed out that he wouldn't necessarily just sit down and watch all of these and I agree. I find myself returning to maybe ten of them whenever I pop this in the DVD player, while others I rarely watch. It DOES make for a good atmosphere to have on in the background. Not to suggest that this is in any way "background" music, but we often listen to music while doing other things and this can basically fill that role, but with the TV on as well as the stereo.

As long as your expectations are reasonable, this is a very enjoyable DVD. It's not flashy like the Sound and Motion DVD, nor is it cheesy like those trance "iTunes visualizer" DVDs. If you like the music, you'll probably enjoy some of the videos. I recommend checking it out.

I've been a huge fan of the Ninja Tune record label for a number of years. They represent a wide variety of music. This DVD is a great tool to explore what the label has to offer if you are just getting started. This DVD is great to play at parties, and with my diverse group of friends, I've had nothing but success with it.

The only downside to this DVD is the interface; I would like to see a shuffle mode.

Lets get moving on volume 2...

Before I get into the content itself, this DVD is quite a good value -- you're essentially buying a 30+ track compilation CD of Ninja Tune's finest "singles", with the added benefit of videos, for a few bucks more than an audio CD. If you have a dvd player running through your stereo, you could easily play this dvd and enjoy just the audio. But if you already own a lot of the music on here (like me) you're probably most interested in the videos.

So how are the videos? Well, very hit and miss. Many are simply chopped up montages of public domain videos -- stuff you've seen a thousand times -- cars crashing, public figures speaking, workers building, insects mating, etc., etc. In other words, take a bunch of readily available video clips and edit them to the beat and *presto* you have a video. No thanks.

The other half is thankfully more creative, with the best of breed going to the fantastic Mr. Scruff -- who should have a dvd all his own -- and Amon Tobin, who has some very imaginative, bizarre videos that perfectly blend w/ his audio style. An unexpected delight is the Sesame Street "Pinball Number Count" re-edited (though I couldn't really notice how) by DJ Food, featuring the original music by the Pointer Sisters. If you learned one through twelve through animation like this, you'll love it.

So with 'Zen TV' it really comes down to how much Ninja Tune material you already own, and how you plan to watch it. As background video wallpaper, for a party / club / bar whatever, it would probably be well used. As a sit-down, watch it all the way through DVD, no. For me, music videos have to be pretty enjoyable and creative to watch repeatedly, so buying a DVD of mostly mediocre videos mixed with a few splendid ones isn't the smartest purchase.

I came a cross this masterpice when I was visiting a friend in Belgium. I have always loved the work ZEN releases and in this marveous DVD the have really collected the cream dela cream.

35 MUSIC TRACKS & THE VIDEO IF YOU LIKE ELECTRONIC MUSICK THIS IS A MUST HAVE. THERE IS NOTHER MORE I CAN SAY. BEST DVD "EVER"

I'm a big fan of Ninja Tune but their music videos suck! Except for Amon Tobin's the rest are bland. I like 'scratch video' art but those by Coldcut are just boring. Better invest your money in the "Director's Series - The Works of Spike Jonze, Chris Cunningham, and Michel Gondry".