Basement Jaxx Avoid Leather, Drugs And Careless Mixing

After touring with Robbie Williams to win over German fans, British dance music stars Basement Jaxx recently stepped back up to the throne for their most recent work, Crazy Itch Radio.

The follow-up to 2003's electro-punk assault, Kish Kash, is a poppier statement with no hugely famous guest vocalists, less manic layering and a fixation on catchy (but still crazy) song structures. Although guests include Scandinavian pop hero Robyn, grime guru Lady Marga and Oh My Gosh's Vula Malinga, there's one lady that the Jaxx couldn't rope in for their fourth album.

"Another person we had on our wish list is Grace Jones, but we still haven't managed to get her in the studio," DJ Felix Buxton explains. "We hoped she would be on this record, but I think our manager hasn't really got many tabs on her and she's a bit bonkers — which is part of the reason why we want to get her in."

Don't fret, though, the Jaxx remain bonkers on CIR. They've created swirling banjo-house stompers like second single "Take Me Back To Your House" (which Buxton says was inspired by their lack of visits to Canada, and which was sung by Canadian Martina Sorbara), eastern European marching-techno ("Hey You"), back alley funk-swing ("On The Train"), and even Hitchcockian electronics ("Smoke Bubbles"). The album is piled with influences from around the world, which Buxton attributes to his God-lovin' father.

"The world influences probably come from when I was young and my dad played Austrian music and Hawaiian music and Japanese drumming music, and then Mozart," Buxton says. "That's where I started, so it all seemed very normal to me, and I was very interested in music from different countries.

"My dad's a priest, a vicar. He grew up in the country, he's from a farming family, so he's definitely got a bit of English eccentricity. And I think, as a vicar, you're allowed be into whatever you want... as long as it's not S&M or crack."

Role-playing and narcotics aside, there's one important thing to remember when mixing all of these musical cultures.

"I think you have to be very careful when blending other styles of music," Buxton advises.

"Namely, in 'Take Me Back To Your House,' we used a banjo in that, and that's got a kind of country feel to it. I think that while making a country house track can go really bad, it's about having some understanding of what you're sampling and if you've got some love and empathy with the genre.

"Dance music's always bad when they wreck the original feeling by putting big break-beats all over it. Considering we throw loads of things in, hopefully it will work. I suppose the only way to look at it is 10 years later."