For most people my age there are a group of maybe five artists which first sharply turned our heads towards dance music. The list includes the likes of Groove Armada, the Chemical Brothers, Fatboy Slim, Daft Punk and, of course, the decisive BASEMENT JAXX. The UK house duo fervently rose to prominence in the late '90s with a string of infectious hits including Bingo Bango, Romeo and of course Where's Your Head At. On the cusp of their fifth studio release, Scars, I chatted to Felix Buxton about Yoko Ono, a decade of hits and all things Basement Jaxx.
"As the name suggests, Scars is about a darker place we were in when we started writing the album," says a reflective Buxton in the midst of a dutifully long day promoting the album. "There was a lot of friction in both of our lives, in relationships and outside of that. We have been around for a while and we have suffered ten years of bruises and scars and this is where we are now and this is what the album reflects."
Despite the ominous nature of the title of their latest release, Basement Jaxx have returned to a refreshingly catchy sound. 2006's Crazy Itch Radio was a not-so-well-executed attempt at the illusive concept album (an introspective comment on the top 40... ahem). Scars offers a series of well executed collaborations. The most interesting of which undoubtedly involves avante-garde artist Yoko Ono.
"We didn't have a general plan of attack to talk to Yoko," says Buxton. "I mean we had seen or read somewhere that she was a fan of our music, so we knew it wasn't beyond our reach. Many years ago we bumped into her manager at a party so we were able to contact him again. I felt like I had a connection with her. To be honest I wanted to speak to her about life and the universe. She became prominent in the love generation and we started making waves in the acid house generation. During both periods there was a lot of social change. For example in our time the violence stopped so much in the football terraces. I felt there were a lot of parallels."
As with their previous albums Felix and Simon Ratcliffe (the Jaxx's other limb) have clearly ensured Scars resonate both visually and aurally. "We knew we wanted the cover to feature certain imagery such as the future and the desert," Buxton describes. "We also wanted it to be neither human nor beast, just clashes of matter. Matt Maitland did the design of our new album and I think he did a great job in turning our vision to reality. Matt did the art for our second album Rooty and has also done the art for the second part release of Scars [Basement Jaxx are still to release some down tempo tunes that didn't make the cut on the original album]. Basically Matt really understands the Basement Jaxx aesthetic."
Scars is available now online or from all the regular outlets. Can we expect a Basement Jaxx tour announced soon? Maybe... "We'll maybe come down to Australia in February next year. Hopefully we get some offers from the big festivals." Fingers Crossed.
