Basement Jaxx Don't Make Things Easy For Anyone

11/27/09 2:50pm

by Phil Villeneuve (CHARTattack)

Basement Jaxx have officially been making sweet, monstrous, manic music together since 1994.

While they seemed to make slight house music headway in North America with their major label debut, 1999's Remedy, the duo have since struggled to keep their heads above water this side of the ocean ever since.

Despite Scars, their new albu,m being an astounding audio assault, things remain stagnant for Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton in terms of chart success on this continent 10 years after Remedy. But personally and professionally, these two Brits have grown into something larger than any SoundScan report.

"We can ask Yoko Ono to do records with us now," said Simon Ratcliffe about how much the duo have evolved since their inception.

"The live show has really come on, back in the day we weren't sure if we should even go live. Our contemporaries Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers were all doing live shows, but our music seemed to have more people in it. It couldn't just be two people behind the mixing decks. We thought we had to present what was on the record, which was really dense and populated and over time I guess we've become more confident and more ambitious."

While that ruthlessness doesn't seem to hurt the Jaxx in the U.K., where they still chart regularly, outside the clubs they've mostly disappeared from most North American's consciousness. Could it be that they're too ambitious? With the shape of today's pop music landscape, can Canadian and American brains even handle big bodacious beats, glittering synths and Sam Sparrow's soulful voice (hear "Feelings Gone")?

"With us it's quite hard to work out what we are," Ratcliffe says from a couch in his Toronto hotel room. "It's like with our first album, a couple German journalists were absolutely baffled because there was humour on it and they asked, 'Is this album a joke?' And then other people find it weird that we would do a song with JC Chasez of 'N Sync. What it is is that we're not purists.

"We love underground music, but at the same time we'd really love to work with a choir, Yoko Ono and yeah, [former *NSync member] JC Chasez has got a cool voice for that situation, we're all-inclusive. We're into everything we can possibly touch.

"As long as we can make it beautiful and a part of our world and not compromise. Maybe [we're bigger in the U.K.] because in England people have grown up with us and we've grown up with the London cultural scene.

"Are we a pop group or an art group or DJs? It's no one's fault, we don't make it easy for anyone. We are who we are and either you're comfortable with that or you're not and that's the way it is."

Ratcliffe is also aware, though, that their greatest hurdle could also simply be time. They're not the new kids on the block anymore and that alone can create struggle.

"It gets harder as you get older," he said. "When you first come out you're the new flavour and you can't do anything wrong, then after a while things change and it's like, 'Basement Jaxx have got a new album out. So what?' It keeps you on your toes."

You can see Basement Jaxx here:

Dec. 6 Swindon, UK @ Swindon Oasis
Dec. 8 Dublin, Ireland @ Olympia Theatre
Dec. 11 Blackppol, UK @ Empress Ballroom
Dec. 12 Glasgow, Scotland @ Barrowlands
Dec. 13 Wolverhampton, UK @ Wolverhampton Civic
Dec. 14 Plymouth, UK @ Plymouth Pavilion
Dec. 16 Bournemouth, UK @ Bournemouth BIC
Dec. 17 London, UK @ O2 Arena
Dec. 31 Singapore, Singapore @ Zouk Club (DJ set)
Jan. 2 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia @ KL Live at Life Centre (DJ set)
Feb. 13 Sydney, Australia @ Good Vibrations Festival
Feb. 14 Perth, Australia @ Good Vibrations Festival
Feb. 20 Queensland, Australia @ Good Vibrations Festival
Feb. 21 Melbourne, Australia @ Good Vibrations Festival