New Basement Jaxx

The reviews for this record, with some exceptions, are all following the same script or something. A shitty script. "Y'know, Rooty was sooooooo overrated, hey, let's knock this one down a little to show the Jaxx are not gods." The the complaints about the density just shows why lotsa J-pop records would never get past the pigeonholing rag-writers in this country, there are far too many massive overgeneralisations about the album involving Prince, the number of guests is actually being used to argue against the album (annoying cause I agreed with Ronan (?) upthread about the 'anonymity' of Jaxx vocalists, plus the whole JC argument) and I could've ripped out the page when I found one reviewer whining about the lack of 'a step forward'. Wasn't it jess or stevem who recently said something about the pointlessness of looking for giant leaps and revolutions in music in this day and age?

(Barima in intolerance non-shocker)

so you're not going to explain Anthony? can we presume jess was right above and let you stop digging. your opinion's your opinion but it doesn't seem too informed.

Pardon me for getting in the way there boys, but Anthony, are you taking IDM to mean 'sickening production skills, astounding studio mastery and impressive stereo mixing' or are you just perceiving a high concept in Kish Kash Ronan (and I) aren't getting?

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

Xxxxxxxxxx-poooooooooooooooossssssssstttttttttttttttt!!!

I still like Remedy better! I suspect it will never be topped in mine heart!

miccio wtf is that 'context of abundance' ism bs up there - them college books messin wit yo head boy!

: ) - it's just 'oh great, another ilxor who I'm not gonna understand wtf they're saying half the time'

ie. SPEAK ENGLISH MUTHERFUKKER!

Remedy is more the sort of music I like, ie house, but I think I can safely say I like Kish Kash better than any of the other albums now. I can't stop listening to If I Ever Recover and putting it on mixtapes. Dizzee single is only going to get even more fun as it breaks into the mainstream and fills some floors

I've been listening to Rooty on and off ('Breakaway' is my new fave song off that record), but I haven't found my way back to Remedy, despite 'Rendez-vu' being my Jaxx song for life. How wack am I?

Next single - 'Plug It In', round mid-January time?

no Blount, just Koganisms.

Actually I was being a bit facetious when I referred to Basement Jaxx as IDM. I know they're not IDM because the D is actually valid. Taking the term at face value would be dance music that is "intelligent" and judging by the praise being heaped on the album, I'm surprised you'd take offense at my use of the term, Ronan. Besides, one doesn't have to have a Simon Reynolds glossary to understand whether music is moving you or not. Or to enjoy electronic or dance music. The only way my opinion could be cast aside as "uninformed" is if you're enjoying the album on some academic prog-type level, in which case my comment on this album being masturbatory would be dead-frikkin'-on.

and to explain what I meant by "context of abundance." Kogan wrote this Disco Tex essay that everybody creams about where he talks about music where ANYTHING could happen (as opposed to say a Husker Du album where salsa couldn't possibly happen), this being a context of abundance. Kish Kash qualifies, but my problem is that it seems to be too busy reaffirming it's everythingness to actually say anything. Though may be I haven't been playing it loud enough to hear it say DANCE DANCE DANCE so I'll rectify that next time.

typo in post before last. "heaped on the album, so I'm surprised"

FUCK. my typo explanation was wrong! there was no typo after all. sorry.

I think there's an implication here that dance music is either intelligent or stupid, rather than good or bad. That good dance albums are "intelligent" and there's a remaining "rest" which aren't. That it's an either or, that exceptional in dance music is "not stupid/throwaway".

I also think you've no idea of the connotations of the term IDM, but that's less important.

Also I'm not really sure about this shit of "saying something", it's music for music's sake, like most worthwhile albums/singles, it doesn't have to "say" anything. That's our job.

dude, I don't actually like the term IDM. Again, I was basically making a joke. and album has to tell us why it's worth listening to, critics just repeat what they hear. So far Kish Kash just says it's got a lotta crazy sounds on it, not a lot of grabbing hooks.

ok, that's fucking crazy. this album's all hooks.

can't remember many myself (though how much do you wanna bet I'm gonna play the damn thing a little louder next time and come back and retract all this indifference?)

I'm sensing a divide between people who can perceive hooks in this album and those who can't. And I'm botherd.

but until this volume-increased reappraisal I'm just gonna note that I doubt I'm gonna hear any of these "hooks" in a Coke ad in the next year.

anthony I blasted half this thing at a frat party in south georgia. it held up. play it at a party. stop thinking of it as an album, feel free to skip the trax that don't grab you, then when you get tired of the trax that do grab you - lo and behold: more trax!

don't listen to it alone unless you are in your car and you just got off work.

Re: hooks - your point being? One of my co-workers has been singing 'Good Luck' all week (he's being playing it all week but all I can hear are the d'n'b synth squiggles at the end and an occasional snatch of (YES) the hook (!).

Yeah so if it's not used in an ad then it can't have a hook. Pop music doesn't have to bludgeon you with a sledgehammer Anthony.

I think I've only listened to it alone but then I tend to imagine what everything I listen to would be like at a party.

when I hear 'good luck' I hear what I imagine people who liked 'crazy in love' heard when they heard 'crazy in love' (somebody demangle this)

I'll follow yer logic tonight, Blount. And Ronan, it kinda does have to have an effect on you, whether it bludgeons you or kills you softly. But anyhow, I've spoken my peace until I give it the correct "ok I'm at a party I'm not chillin' at the crib" listen.

haha and I loved "Crazy In Love" from the first time I heard it!

Good Luck is astounding. Like many elastic bands in unison.

I think it's one of the best songs ever. To release it as a single would really spoil us.

And I hate The Bellrays so much!

I am scared it will appear at the end of some film where someone teaches someone a lesson. Or on an ad with someone telling someone off and strutting off independently.

Oh, it's tailor made to strut independently and look forward to a brighter tomorrow to.

And Plug It In will be behind some exciting premiership highlights soon enough.

"Today's moment of romantic entanglement and emotional turmoil on Smallville was brought to you by Basement Jaxx and Lisa Kekaula with 'Good Luck'".

Hey Anthony, good luck in your new bed! I hope you'll enjoy the record eventually.

re:sports highlights. On the last 5-6 years' evidence, this is in fact "Red Alert's" raison d'etre, no?

They use The Terrace on BBC! Wasn't Fatboy Slim's I'm Going Out Of My Head popular too?

"Red Alert" also sold Coke for awhile. I think I heard "Where's Your Head At?" in a million ads too.

Including PRINGLES! Where the handlebar mustachioed mascot SANG ALONG!

(well, okay, lip-synched)

"cish cash" brings the fucking house down on first listen (I have proven this empirically).

i am just champing at the bit to see the 'Lucky Star' video. i have no real criticisms of Kish Kash, it's great dance, great pop, great music. that said i do get this sense of...resignation (almost said defeatism but the Jaxx have SO won whatever war they were/are fighting) about it. not sure how to qualify that statement, but i felt the same after hearing A Hundred Days Off last year - enjoyable album but Underworld were no longer able to SURPRISE, they'd found their level and it's hard to see where they can go to avoid making anything different now. Basement Jaxx face a similar problem - BUT they have more scope in their sound and ideas really. 'Good Luck' is a defiant future echo it's hard to envisage not being moved by. it tends to remind me of Ultra Nate's 'Found A Cure' but that's a far more timid and conventional dance track. as far as i'm concerned there is no greater modern party music, but i've felt that way ever since i first heard 'Fly Life'.

Agreed, but "modern" is a key word- it still sounds as current as fuck, yet clearly identifiable as the Jaxx on first listen. Can they stay current by just changing their sound each time but making ever bolder/more relevant choices of vocalist?

― adaml (adaml), Sunday, 19 October 2003 22:47 (twenty years ago) link

I use "bold" there because Siouxsie and Meshell were a far cry from relevant before this record, IMO.

I don't think Anthony's comments are empty. I think he's spot on actually about the "context of abundance" issue - one of the potential difficulties with Kish Kash is that it so thoroughly destabilises the "repetitious grooves + surprises and interruptions" approach that defined the Jaxx's production style circa Remedy that at first the constant parading of surprises can seem too easy, like the "repetitious grooves" team forfeited the game at the beginning of the match and the "surprises and interruptions" team have just been kicking balls into the net by themselves.

The album only really comes into its own, I think, when you've listened to it enough that the surprises and interruptions are no longer so startling but rather form the very fabric of the song, such that they sound normal. There's almost nothing more enjoyable than listening to a Basement Jaxx song and waiting for the next little left-field hook to arrive and then hearing it arrive. This is the Jaxx's secret I think - not making grooves that sound wacky so much as making wacky grooves sound like the most natural thing in the world. Of course this doesn't explain the people here who *instantly* thought the album was the best thing ever, but it explains my relationship to it at least.

None of this is a criticism by the way - it's a kind of roundabout compliment actually, and I reiterate that Kish Kash has become my album of the year and favourite of the three (albeit slowly) - but I can see how this process could leave some listeners initially underwhelmed.

dango. that's the kind of post that actually makes me wanna relisten to the album (not that Blount didn't already achieve that). Thanks, Tim.

I'd also try throwing it on random as well. Somehow that worked for me. I think it partially reaffirms the "context of abundance" in that virtually any track can open this album successfully, openers being where we typically expect to be either 1)blown out the window by sheer force of beats and sonic inventiveness or 2)slowly lulled into the album's charms. Kish Kash does both.

That said, I can see not liking the album altogether. Ultimately it's not really *about* anything, it's more propelled by it's own energy. Like sitting and bouncing up and down just cuz. I have no problem at all like this and basically use it to lend that energy to myself! That said I tend to skip over a few tracks that don't fit this reading. "Supersonic" which drags like that REALLY EXCITING PARTY that doesn't have the sense to end (no arc) and "Cish Cash," which is like a fun party trick but eh, repetitive lyrics.

Tonight->Hot N Cold->Living Room is sheer fucking genius, though. And "Lucky Star" is what Dizzee's album sounded like in my head before I heard it!

Don't get jealous, the music in my head is not actually that good. I exaggerate.

I used to be ambivalent "Supersonic" but now I think it's my favourite track maybe.

I like the swing in the beat- when it first starts it's a blessing- but it takes SO long for anything to actually change. For some reason it bothers me there. I know there's plenty of fireworks over the top but we don't get a chord change for four minutes. Also, harmonicas drive me mad.

I want to be totally supportive of the berserker vocal but it sounds like she just doesn't have enough to do.

Where's that "I just want you to holler right now!" sample from? I swear I've heard it before.

Its whole kitchen-sink approach to house reminds me heavily of The Avalanches' "Close To You" which is an enormous compliment coming from me. The whole point is that the groove doesn't really change, things just keep getting piled on top way beyond the weight which it is safe for the initial groove to support. It's like a party in an elevator. The best points are the obscured shout-out ("Basement Jaxx new styles..." etc.) followed by the diva's wail, and that weird sampled voice going "Show me you're a man! SHOOOOOWWWW ME YOOOOU'RE A MAN!"

Canny, Tom, but it doesn't make me like it more! Hah. That said I like it enough, it's the most straight-forward house-y track on there and even so it's pushed nearly to the breaking point, isn't it? I let it play most of the time but it's like 9 stars out of ten on an album that's generally about two hundred stars out of ten.

I think the "show me you're a man" bit is the vocalist? Just doing something really wacky with hr voice.