Battle Scars: The Basement Jaxx Settle the Score with Their Fifth Studio Album
Interview by Dennis Sebayan
Basement Jaxx (Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe) are an unstoppable UK house duo who were formerly on Astralwerks before signing with XL Recordings. In 2004 they stepped up to the podium to receive the first-ever Grammy for an Electronic Dance Album (Kish Kash), where they dissed Astralwerks for not performing due diligence promoting the album. Now with their fifth album (after the critical failure Crazy Itch Radio), they return with a slew of new collaborations, dancefloor whimsy and a whole lot of hope. Here’s to being one of house music’s most celebrated heroes. The Jaxx have got fuel to burn.
Your collaborations on Scars are uniquely vibrant, dynamic and in the here and now. What were some challenges in creating platforms where each of your talents could shine?
That sounds quite grand. We make things up as we go along; songs come about in different ways in certain situations; we just co-write. We get someone who we think whose voice could be something special. Lightspeed Champion is a good example of us working with someone from a more folk-indy kind of scene. [We got him] and played him a couple of grooves and then he started playing guitar on it; we all started writing songs – it happened in the studio.
We had other situations, like with Yoko Ono, where we had a very limited amount of time (an hour). So Felix had prepared some words – a train of free thought – and we had a vague backing track for her to sing over. We had our fingers crossed, hoping she wouldn’t be difficult to work with. She wasn’t; she was really up there and easy to work with.
And then there are things that we go over and over.
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