New Basement Jaxx

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

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

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.

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!

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.

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

One of the nice things about being in London last week -- seeing the huge fuck-off ads for the album everywhere in the Tube.

Also, Good Luck is way WAY WAY better than Romeo - anyone who thinks otherwise=mentalist.

I'm amazed what a lukewarm reception the album is getting, critically, but yes, every review is saying much the same thing (great 1st half, dodgy 2nd half) but I really don't understand the hate for If I Ever Recover.

I love Romeo, possibly prefer it to Good Luck, but don't make me choose. Good Luck I find is a record really geared towards physical response, I know dancing to Romeo is great but Good Luck seems like some democratisation of drum and bass rhythms which to a dnb illiterate like me is very attractive.

Matt who was hating on If I Ever Recover? As I keep saying I think it is genius.

The "Lucky Star" mentalism still escapes me. It's nice enough but it's rather blatantly the second-worst track on the album (the worst being "Supersonic").

Right Here's The Spot
Feels Like Home
Plug It In
Cish Cash
If I Ever Recover
Good Luck
Hot N Cold
Living Room
Tonight
Lucky Star
Supersonic

I think the people talking about "Basement Jaxx does the unexpected!" being completely the wrong way of looking at them these days are absolutely correct. The genius of the Jaxx doesn't lie in newness or wackiness as much as it lies in their frightening ability to generate the perfect groove out of anything. (On a complete tangent, I think someone else said this already but "Right Here's The Spot" = "All The Critics Luv U In New York 2003" and is all the better for it.)

Lucky Star and Jaxx trax at their best don't need to be conventionally banging or loud to make you want to react insanely. I was talking about it on my blog earlier this week, that x factor which makes some tracks feel "harder" or inspires a more over the top physical response. I'm not sure what it is but Lucky Star definitely has it if you ask me.

Despite the way I ranked the tracks, the true strength of the album lies in the quiet downtempo tracks. "Feels Like Home" is just so effortlessly gorgeous, and "If I Ever Recover" can float through my head all day.

Ronan's point about dance reactions is pretty otm - I'm the only person I know who could dance to the Cornelius remix of Coldcut for example. Also, I think 'Lucky Star', with its suggestion and tentative embraces of millions of other directions within the song, like the rest of the first half comes off like a series of spasms or some crazy ball of repressed energy that keeps sparking up while someone tries to keep it under control.

Or, uh, that was how I tried to intepret my own thoughts to concur with Ronan's.

*me being hilarious

stevem: stop waiting!! buy a robert owens or mr fingers album!

Because as we all know they are actually ambient meditative droners.