By Antero Garcia
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
According to the duo Basement Jaxx, comprised of Simon Ratcliffe
and Felix Buxton, they aren’t the typical club DJs ““
they actually care about their music.
“We come across a bit harsh toward club music,” said
Ratcliffe from his home in South London. “There’s
sometimes a bit of laziness in club music, and the production is a
bit lazy or sloppy. People in clubs, especially those with ecstasy,
as far as music goes, they really aren’t that critical.
“I think from a musical point of view, that’s a bit
frustrating because we want something with a bit more depth to it,
and something that can be more than just a one-night
experience,” Ratcliffe added.
With their sophomore release “Rooty,” on XL Records,
Basement Jaxx has made another album that not only contagiously
shakes booties on the dance floor but also makes listeners sing
along to it at home. Despite the group’s current critical
success, however, Basement Jaxx wasn’t always the music
innovator that it is heralded as today.
Wanting to release its music since the early ’90s, it
wasn’t until 1998 that a major record label was willing to
sign the British duo. The main reason that the two had trouble
finding a label was because of their lack of originality.
“When we started off we were really mimicking the Chicago
house sound, just good quality soul-ish music,” Ratcliffe
said. “After a couple of tracks, we realized we needed to try
a bit more and attempted to create our own sound. Doing more of our
own thing, something more daring.”
Being daring within the constraints of house music isn’t
easy, according to Ratcliffe. Stylistically, house music is based
heavily around strong bass hooks and catchy piano and horn
riffs.
“House music originated from disco,” said Andrew
Kelly, a first-year undeclared student and DJ. “Basically,
DJs in the ’80s took ’70s disco and added electronica
to it. You can really hear where it comes from.”
In breaking beyond the standard house song, Jaxx expanded what
types of sounds and instruments it uses to record. Because of this,
the duo uses a rich palate of noise.
“We take samples on mini-disc of police cars or people
shouting or birds tweeting and we take those to the studio and they
become the notes we get,” Ratcliffe said. “We like
straight futuristic sounds, sounds that make you sit up and pay
attention, basically.”
With frenzied sampled voices and crisp bass lines, the
group’s single “Red Alert,” from its first album,
“Remedy,” helped push Basement Jaxx’s music into
dance clubs all over the world in 1999. Ratcliffe is quick to point
out that the group didn’t gain pop stardom at a loss of its
musical integrity.
“With “˜Remedy’ we were lucky that we had a
couple of big hits to help sell the album,” he said.
“It wasn’t like we had to sacrifice anything to do
that. We look for a strong chorus and good hooks, and we do it in a
way where we aren’t compromising our music.”
Another way that Basement Jaxx has not compromised its music is
by releasing material that does not appear on XL Records. Besides
“Rooty” and “Remedy,” Basement Jaxx has
released material on its own label ““ Atlantic Jaxx, given out
bootlegs and also released several white label tracks or
independant releases.
“We’ve always liked to do bootlegs ““ things
that we’ve been DJing or playing for a couple of
months,” Ratcliffe said. “Also, tracks that
didn’t make it on the album or are a bit out there, we
release because in the past when we didn’t release things, we
regretted it. So some stuff comes out on XL, some stuff comes out
on Atlantic Jaxx and some stuff comes out white label.”
Ultimately, Basement Jaxx’s releases ““ regardless of
medium ““ aim to create definition in a scene that severely
lacks any.
“Most club music just blends together with no beginning or
ending,” Ratcliffe said. “It just blends from one song
to another with no personality, and we want to have personality in
our music. Club music can be really good, and a lot of it
isn’t, a lot of it is just fodder.”
Despite their seemingly pessimistic attitudes, members of
Basement Jaxx admit that they still enjoy the bass-driven music
that originally inspired them.
“I still love club music but I think with
“Rooty,” I don’t think that pleasing clubs was
the first thing in our minds. We approach things in a different way
and do things that you’re not supposed to do.”
The pair especially breaks traditions in how they are perceived
on- stage during their current tour.
“They are one of the best live acts to see now-a-days,
they put on a really good show,” said Chris Allen, part-owner
of the Westwood electronica store Frequency 8.
With a huge entourage including dancers, singers and a myriad of
instrumentalists, Basement Jaxx isn’t the typical electronic
act.
“We try to draw the emphasis away from us just tweaking
knobs and while that’s a big part of what we do, it’s
visually boring,” Ratcliffe said. “It’s about
people and life and we want to bring that across.”
In communicating its message of life and energy, Basement Jaxx
has created an environment that, according to the Jaxx, is unlike
any other.
“We want to try and do as much as possible and create a
kind of Basement Jaxx world, where it all sounds like Basement Jaxx
but within that world, you’re not restricted to any tempo or
style,” Ratcliffe said. “We want to create that kind of
freedom for ourselves musically.”