New Basement Jaxx

Ben I think you're perhaps reading my argument to be more damning than it was intended to be. I don't think it's illegitimate to say that one of the more appealing aspects of The Neptunes is that they work across lots of different musical contexts, and that making "The Neptunes" the context can dilute this attribute slightly. When I say "releasing a compendium like Clones is a bad idea" I mean that it's bad insofar as it encourages accusations of repetitiveness.

Because everything on Clones is new it invites considerations of the album as a unified and complete body of work, something to be listened to from beginning to end. At this stage of the game listening to ten Neptunes tracks in one sitting, to my mind tends to ram home the similarities b/w each track, and indeed the similarities found in all of The Neptunes' work (nb. this is not a problem when dancing to ten Neptunes tracks in a row for the obvious reason, although I don't think Clones is necessarily suited to that).

If you actually listen to it like a compilation to be delved into a track or two at a time, it works much better. And yeah, it's very convenient to have all the songs rounded up on one cd!

"And In Search Of is so not overrated! I love that album (first version anyway)."

It's a great album, but I'm sick of people saying "The Neptunes better stop churning out identikit singles and start making their second N.E.R.D. masterpiece" - I mean wtf? What is the inherent qualitative difference?

I mean, 'Plug It In', 'Lucky Star', 'Good Luck', 'Cish Cash'...awww man, I'm a slave to the rhythm. Watch me dance to these anytime they get dropped in a club.

so i do hope we all go and buy the album when it EVENTUALLY comes out so we may demonstrate that this method of distributing new music works to EVERYONE'S advantage. the album was uploaded because it was worth hearing thus worth owning. of course if you cannot afford to buy 'Kish Kash', you must delete the mp3s immediately or be forever damned by Jollyon Benn and his band of scheming robots (it's a dirty job but the RIAA says someone's gotta do it, if they want that cash handout)...

oh they're also sending out C&D e-mails to a number of 'bootleggers' seemingly at random requesting the takedown of material that samples copyright recordings. truly we have entered the end of days...

I initially read this as 'classic or dud' e-mails.

Also, BJ on cover of next Mixmag and waiting on the Face to give BJ (haha) their 3rd-in-a-row cover story.

album review:

BASEMENT JAXX
KISH KASH
(XL)
When Basement Jaxx exploded overground back in '99 they proclaimed their sound to be 'punk garage'. Couldn't call it that now, of course, for fear of confusing pallid teenagers in drainpipe jeans searching for an amphetamine guitar fix. And it seems unlikely, given the current musical climate, that any other 'dance' act will be leaping from the underground to the heart of the charts any time soon. The times they are a-changing - Basement Jaxx, thankfully, haven't.
'Kish Kash', you see, is instantly identifiable as being from their Brixton basement. There are the big singalong numbers like 'Good Luck' and the beats that get their weight through sounding like they've been deep fried in a greasy spoon rather than pumped up in the studio.
But as ever the only 'formula' at work here seems to be 'throw it at a wall', and 'Kish Kash' is another glorious mess of ideas that sticks rather than slides. Take 'Lucky Star', where bhangra samples and bashment basslines are stuffed together like clothes into an overflowing suitcase, whilst Dizzee Rascal bounces on top trying to keep the whole thing locked down. Getting the garage man of the moment on your album would look cynical were the Jaxx's street level affiliations not so solid, as would roping in Siouxsie Sioux so soon after electroclash has made the old dominatrix trendy again. But her appearance on 'Kish Kash', like Dizzee's moment, sounds utterly unforced - like a scuzzier progression from Peaches' on 'Rooty's 'Get Me Off', a track which still beats the current crop of electro-porn cuts into submission. Which is what 'Kish Kash' does to the glut of retro 'garage punk' - if you want real rock 'n' roll energy, remember which way round those two words should go. (8)

"If I Ever Recover" sounds-an-awful-lot like "_______________" by _______________.

Instead of the "Didn't know that it was over..." part the chorus consists of a sampled diva singing "Looking for something/It's too late/Won't you be a man?!?" in a pretty pissed-off manner (ie. it's Mike's girlfriend). Presumably changed due to clearance difficulties???

imho it's nowhere near as good as the version on the finished album, though.

I wonder if software exists or is in R&D that could compare the sonic signatures of all your MP3s and identify songs that sound similar that perhaps hadn't occurred to you before.

I suppose it'd take some of the fun out of the research that happens when a Basement Jaxx track sounds awfully familiar and you can't quite place it, but isn't technology supposed to take the fun/mystery out of everything anyway?

Or maybe it's the software/tech that produces mash-ups, no? (Or could mass produce mash-ups?) Mind you I'm not advocating mass production - I just wonder if the software exists.

It's the music that's more like Fingers. I guess the fact that it's an English bloke singing is where the Streets come in (although I don't really hear the Streets--the Jaxx singer isn't rapping and he's not overplaying the accent... ;) but then I don't like the Streets that much and I haven't listened to them ages, so you should probably ignore me...)

Are you being contrary or just posting after listening to 10 seconds of each track? A little from column a/little from column b?

(Barima in intolerance non-shocker)

(Most of the dance fans I know think IDM is a random, very meaningless and dumbass term, no 'fense)