New Basement Jaxx

i also love how brent d's "knowledge of jungle" is animals on wheels (?!) and pork recordings!!!

tim, i don't follow the comments in your second paragraph upthread. although i agree it IS becoming increasingly difficulty to find the center of the groove i think this makes the parts less autonomous, not more. i would call the parts of a straight techno track autonomous - you could isolate out the kick, or the snares or the hats, and still have the essence of the rhythm. this is fairly obvious, it's what techno djs do all the time. on the other hand there's no way to seperate out the parts of the jaxx tracks - grab the vocals from "where's your head at" like the 2manydjs did for soulwax pt. 2 and they become just so many sound effects, whereas in the context of the original track the yelping vocal track, yes, "derives meaning from the interaction" of the rhythmic parts.

maybe i'm just niggling over a small difference in terminology but i do think it's salient, esp. w/ regards to the vocals. i think the "plug it in" acapella will prove to be a weaker dj tool than "rock your body" (although the more interesting question is whether that'll hold true for the instrumentals).

maybe im being charitable, but i find it hard to believe that pitchfork would defile their home page with so many jay-z's, kylies and bubbas unless they were making SOME sort of concession to the pro-chart faction, no?

I think he writes them all now. Ott was writing some -- if not most or all of them -- when he was working in a Senior Editor position.

FWIW, Ryan does like this album - he wouldn't include it in 'best new music' otherwise - although he is obviously overly cautious about the site’s history here. (And, I'd also guess, who he feels is its audience). (The blurb is sort of like the indie online mag version of New Soldier Field, cramming How He Feels Now in alongside the site’s archived reviews/Doric columns, as if the old PFM reviewed were protected by some sort of historical landmark status and can’t be fucked with no matter how awkwardly they fit with his opinion of B. Jaxx now.)

but why not just go all the way and say "you know what, in light of x y and z, maybe it's time to reevaluate our stance on this"?

why treat archives hard and fast - like back issues of print magazines - when the one major advantage of your medium is that you CAN constantly update, revise, append?

i don't think any of us want brent's review deleted!

I don't know why not - like I said up thread, it would great for him to say 'hey, we were wrong'!

Okay let me kinda rephrase myself, 'cos when I said "autonomy" I sort of meant "taking a more active and independently differentiated role in deciding the nature of the groove" - by which I mean that you can't just listen to one aspect (a kickdrum) and use that to work out what another aspect (a snare pattern) is doing. Most dance music - and staple house/techno/trance especially - seems to possess a prevailing groove idea which all aspects of the music are subordinate to. Thus any component can stand in as the "center" of the groove because all components lead back to the same groove idea. With music like early jungle, 2-step or increasingly Basement Jaxx, there's a decentering effect where the prevailing groove idea can only be established by listening to the relationship between all the different components in the music - the groove idea is a dialogue, not a chorus line.

The "Plug it In" vocal *would* be weaker than other vocals as an acapella because it's like isolating a single comment from within a dialogue and expecting it to make sense on its own. Whereas a single voice singing a chorus can be transplanted to another song and still make sense, because it contains or alludes to the whole of the groove idea of the track from which it is taken (indeed you could say that the point of bootlegging vocals in dance music is to see how different groove ideas can speak to and against eachother).

I don't want to imply a value judgment though - obviously monolithically monological dance music can be and frequently is a great thing.

"The former N*Sync star delivers the falsetto vocal although Siouxsie Sioux was the original choice."

Thought it interesting with the back and forth on Jaxx vocals we've had.

Can't see that anyone else has said this on this thread, so am I the only person who gets a wierd Supremes' 'where did our love go?' flashback in the verses of 'Good Luck'? Before that insanely uplifting chorus kicks in, and all forms of comparison just fly out of my head I'm so hyped-up. But where is the 'Living Room' love? It's adorable, sounds so sparse and lofi and stomps so cutely along: it's like Rendez-vu's cute cute cuuute little kid brother.

re 'Plug it in', Chasez' voice isn't all that recogniseable as him, I'd say. He's singing in a completely different style than he did in either 'nsync's records or what I've heard of his solo stuff (ie 'blowing me up (with her love)'). It's a lot more clipped, almost nasal at times, that strange light falsetto, not what I'd associate with him at all - although the laugh? That's so him. Adapting to the music he's working with, I'd guess, but the difference is pretty startling. To a mad 'nsync fangirl like me. ;)

And, on the basis of 'Right Here's the Spot', I now fancy Meshell N'dgeocello something rotten. gaaaaaaaaaaah.

...not to my knowledge, jess.

I prefer 'Tonight'.

This album has turned me into a mentalist! When I was listening to it on a listening post in a store, I damn near started to dance (without wearing no seatbelt) whenever 'Right Here's The Spot', 'Lucky Star' and 'Plug Me In' (best breaks-rock tune EVAH) kicked off. So I forced myself to make my own way home.

One of the fun suprises about Jaxx records is seeing who did uncredited vocals. Ty (UK Big Dada rapper) is on Plug It In, but you'd never tell that without looking. But the credited stuff is great of course, and reading cis' posts, I'm a little more interested in seeing what Chasez is gonna hit us with next (and I know I preferred his singing to Justin's (albeit barely) in 'Pop'). Anyone heard his BT collabs?

DB, I'm picking mine up tomorrow, but I'm so damn tempted to buy the CD too.

All in barely two and a half minutes.

I've got to stop listening to this record on the bus. I'm fighting a losing battle against dancing in my seat and scaring the poor unfortunates sitting next to me.

(am I just imagining the futurama-theme-tune squiggle in Lucky Star?)

(I also bought the Rapture's Echoes on LP but I am a little cranky that the cover is in b/w. RIPOFF)

Of course, it could just be karma balancing out after I found a fine-condition French pressing of Boney M's Nightflight to Venus for $5.