(Clicka qua per la versione Italiana)
Following in the footsteps of the Chemical Brothers
and Daft Punk,
Basement Jaxx (Brixton's disc jockeys Felix Burton and Simon Ratcliffe)
played exuberant, catchy, frantic post-techno music with reggae and latin
overtones
in the underground hits that they released during the 1990s: Be Free
(Atlantic Jaxx, 1995),
Samba Magic (1996),
Fly Life (1996),
Get Down Get Horny (1996), Belo Horizonti (credited to The
Heartists), Urban Haze (1997), Wish Tonite (1997).
Unlike most techno musicians, they composed songs, songs that stand on their own.
The early recordings will surface on Atlantic Jaxx (Beggars, 2001).
Basement Jaxx's first album, Remedy (Astralwerks, 1999), built on
the creativity of the previous EPs.
They mix latin music (Bingo Bingo) and hip-hop
(Jump N'Shout).
They indulge in the robotic ballet of Yo Yo, and sculpt the surreal
and pounding Same Old Show.
They triumph with the soul-poppy Red Alert and
the exuberant flamenco-ish Rendez-Vu.
At best, their style is derivative of "garage house", the style born in the
late 1980s our of New York gay clubs that basically set sexy
rhythm'n'blues crooning to a techno beat.
At worst, their tracks are trivial dancefloor cliches.
With Rooty (Astralwerks, 2001), instead,
Buxton and Ratcliffe composed a tribute album to rhythm'n'blues, from
Romeo (virtually a sendup of the Tamla style) to
Get Me Off (that harks even further back in time to the girl-groups
of the 1950s) to Do Your Thing (a charming throwback to the
jump-blues bands of the 1950s),
with nods to tex-mex (Broken Dreams),
Caribbean music (I Want You), funk (Jus 1 Kiss), etc.
The artistic value is very low, though, throughout the proceedings.
They mostly provide generic dancefloor exuberance, such as
the hit Where's Your Head At.
A much more somber work, Kish Kash (Astralwerks, 2003)
finds Ratcliffe and Buxton in a bluesier state of mind
(the string-laden Good Luck, vaguely reminiscent of
Gloria Jones's Tainted Love,
Living Room, Feels Like Home,
If I Ever Recover), that does
not sacrifice the arrangement gimmicks and the avantgarde raps, but rarely
(Supersonic) addresses the dancefloor.
The single Lucky Star (featuring rapper Dizzee Rascal),
the nod to electro-clash of Cish Cash ( Siouxsie Sioux on vocals),
the Prince-like funk-soul Right Here's the Spot (featuring Me'shell Ndegeocello)
and Plug It In ('N Sync's JC Chasez on vocals)
mainly rely on imitation and the appeal of household names.
The dance-pop opera Crazy Itch Radio (XL, 2006) is not necessarily
misguided in its intent to weave a sequence of songs around a narrative pretext
but simply fails to produce cute novelties like they used to.
Hush Boy, Take Me Back to Your House and Hey You are witty
and poppy, but sound restrained and fluffy.
The best moments of
Scars (Ultra, 2009)
come when the emphasis is on recreating a retro style.
Raindrops is the only number that sticks to the conventional
techno/house format of their trademark hits.
Feelings Gone is a close second in that style.
Scars, instead, begins with litter of symphonic/operatic fragments wrapped around a platation rhythm and sound effects; then the female voice interacts with the operatic choir in a call-and-response fashion.
She's No Good is a
swinging thumping rhythm'n'blues with lots of keyboard diversions.
Day of the Sunflowers (possibly the highlight)
is a feverish charleston fanfare with an Hawaian-style melody.
Overall, there is variety, but not quality:
Saga is a robotic rigmarole over festive polyrhythm;
Twerk is a propulsive rap piece;
A Possibility is a slow sleepy twangy ballad; etc. But none of them has
enough substance to justify the stylistic excursion.
Guest vocalists include like Yoko Ono, Sam Sparro, Santogold, Kelis, Yo Majesty.
Basement Jaxx vs. Metropole Orkest (2011) collects remixes by the Metropole Orkest of the Netherlands orchestra, conducted by Jules Buckley.
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