Ninja Tune is renown for releasing quirky, intelligent music, and Pest’s All Out Fall Out certainly falls well within the usual Ninja scope. Their music is essentially undefinable as anything but “Ninja Tune”, crossing the boundaries of funk, jazz, hiphop and ‘dance’. However, unlike some other Ninja Tune releases, which can get a little too arty and pretentious at times, Pest is fun, funky and incredibly danceable.

Pest’s members come from vastly different backgrounds and, looking at it on paper it shouldn’t work. It contains a classically trained cello player, a hiphop DJ/MC, a trombonist from the Bollywood Brass Band, a techno producer and a guitarist who won a Gibson guitar scholarship. However, this menagerie of talent comes together to make some amazingly cool, funky music. Unlike their previous album, this seems less sample based, and more “raw”, but that rawness is an illusion as the music is perfectly produced.

Pat Pong, the first single, is a groovy little number with a very relaxed, lounge feel. The sample that’s cut up through the song, “mother fucking tight”, very probably stolen from a porn film, suits the band in general – bold, brash, and very tight. WuJu is a song that sounds instantly recognisable, but that could just be the extremely Tricky sounding MC / DJ very British brogue rapping “It’s amazing wot we do for the things that we like”.

Ogres has a very nasty techno sounding bassline, whilst Try Again is a fast paced beat fest featuring samples and a dirty bassline, perfect for shaking your rump to. Then there is a tune such as Rumourtism, which starts off with Spanish guitars and the sample off an old ‘get the best from learning’ record they made in the 60s to encourage people to listen and learn. As it rolls along, it becomes a jazz-rock beast of a tune with heavy guitars and blaring horns!

All Out Fall Out has a very quirky sound, and as unlikely as the mash of sounds appears on paper, it all actually works, and works very well. And it works as a ‘listen whilst drinking wine and eating cheese’ as well as something to put on to groove away to in the car, or to pick up the vibe in a lounge club. All told, it’s another great Ninja Tune release!