(Creative Vibes)

Sexy, haunting and deliciously danceable, My Ninja Lover is a welcome addition to the Australian breakbeat scene. The debut CD ‘Silk & Daggers’ boasts an amazingly mature and developed sound, and contains thirty-three sumptuous minutes of intricately layered vocal breaks. Winning the Nokia Connecting Beats competition earned this Brisbane trio a trip to London and a mastered EP- and this is the succulent fruit of their labour. The competition’s judges chose very wisely in this case, and the victors have produced the best new Australian breakbeat release I’ve ever heard.

Opening with the track ‘Shudder’, My Ninja Lover can’t hide their ability to create true songs. The beats are dark and electronic, with countless glitchy electronic textures adding colour to the infinitely musical arrangements. While the instrumental bed itself would hold up on its own, the female vocals offer an evocative melody that soars over the track. This is the magic weave that My Ninja Lover repeats with ‘2×2’, and once again in ‘A Day Off’. It’s no surprise to learn that all three members are seasoned musicians, Porl DeVille and Manta Ray having spent the last five years touring with Zephyr Timbre. Porl and Chris Buckridge have been working together under various monikers since 1996, and their collective experience manifests in highly evolved and evocative music.

2×2 is my favourite on this release, though each track has been produced with equal care, attention and finesse. I’d like to ask Manta Ray just how she manages to sound cute and sinister at the same time in this instance- the track truly epitomizes the CD’s title. There are some nasty breaks, soaring slower vocal moments and some subtly applied delays & stutter effects with overall a great sense of ‘whole’. ‘Tin Cat’ starts off instrumentally like something The Baggsmen might have jammed out while working as The Hive, before taking a dark cabaret swing with the addition of the melody. The vocals are Shirley Bassey meets Portishead, cast over a spattering light-handed d’n’b groove. The jazz is there and remains suggested as the vocals back off, with keyboard harmonies peeping through the mix during the instrumental breakdown.

‘A Day Off’ is thematically similar to 4Hero’s ‘Another Day’- a soothing anthem for the day-job escapist. The groove is a spacious programmed breakbeat, awash with pads and cruisey synths reminiscent of Adam F’s album ‘Colours’. The vocal melody is slow and delightful, and is complemented by some unexpected arpeggiated synths. The four tracks thus far are examples of great composition and album continuity. Manta squeezes so much character and depth into her performances, and there is sufficient difference between each song to hold your interest the whole way.  

The Scuff’s Techtonic mix of ‘Shudder’ has more of an old-school electro feel and is more restrained than the original. Nevertheless it’s a worthy inclusion, and picks up in intensity gradually as the vocals are progressively consumed by the popping synth lines. Qubism’s remix of 2×2 takes a fantastic breakbeat and replaces it with a four-on-the-floor House/Trance beat, complemented with retro spy-genre inspired guitar chords. The intro smarts of Faithless, but that tapers out when the guitars and vocals come in. If remixes will allow My Ninja Lover to reach a wider audience quicker that’s great, but the sophisticated interplay of poly-rhythms is sorely missed in this version.

Taking or leaving the bonus remixes, the four album versions on this disc are highly original, well polished examples of atmospheric breakbeat bliss. If you like the vocals and moods of acts like Portishead and Moloko and have a passion for breakbeats with lavish arrangements, make My Ninja Lover your next listen.

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