Crowded Basement full of surprises

By MIKE HOULAHAN

What do fast-rising rapper Dizzee Rascal and punk veteran Siouxsie Sioux have in common? Seemingly not a lot.

However, Dizzee Rascal - winner of this year's prestigious Mercury Music Prize for his gritty debut disc - and Sioux, frontperson of pivotal punk band Siouxsie and the Banshees, each feature on Kish Kash, the new album by British dance producers Basement Jaxx, who perform at Big Day Out in Auckland next month.

"I think it's more varied than anything we've done before, but I also think it sits together as a body of work better," says Felix Buxton, who with partner Simon Ratcliffe is Basement Jaxx.

Like Basement Jaxx's earlier albums, Kish Kash is chock full of ideas. Buxton and Ratcliffe have long specialised in having more ideas on one record than many of their peers manage in a whole career and Kish Kash sees Basement Jaxx at their most daring

"I think this, more than any of our early stuff, is more a full-on experience," Buxton says.

"That doesn't meant it smashes you around the head the first time you hear it, rather that you have to get into it a bit more. Hopefully that means it will be more rewarding as an album."

Basement Jaxx's earlier discs defied critical analysis. "We've always had that problem, with people not being quite sure where to place us," Buxton says.

"We do stuff all over the place, which we have no problem with and neither does the audience who have stuck with us.

"This album veers more away from what people call dance music. You can still dance to most of it, but a track like Cish Cash (the Siouxsie Sioux track) - you definitely have to dance to it in a different way."

Sioux's involvement came from staring the obvious in the face, Buxton says. After writing Cish Cash they thought the track needed a vocalist like Siouxsie Sioux. After casting their nets far and wide and hearing several tapes of singers, someone thought to ask why not just get in touch with the woman herself?

"We did, and she was keen to do it," Buxton says. "A few people when they first heard it were really surprised and were asking 'Is this Basement Jaxx?' but I think that's good - you've got to surprise people and keep going forward."

While Dizzee Rascal has recently become a major name in the British scene, he was a relative unknown struggling to secure a record deal when Basement Jaxx came across him.

Buxton says Dizzee Rascal's winning one of Britain's major music prizes in the same month they released Kish Kash was a great commercial coincidence, but one no one could have foreseen.

"He seemed to stand out from the garage MCs as someone who was different and interesting. We got in touch with him, brought him into the studio and he seemed pretty cool, he had something to say and to have his own unique way of saying it," Buxton says.

"I'm really pleased things have taken off for him. When he came in he hadn't done his own album, he was just about to start on it and was looking for a deal. I can't believe he won the Mercury Music Prize, because he is so uncompromising and underground in his style, but I'm also glad he won - it's encouraging for British music."

Other vocalists to feature on Kish Kash include Meshell Ndegeocello and JC Chasez of N'Sync fame. Chasez and another Kish Kash singer, Millie, were voices which stumbled unexpectedly across Basement Jaxx's radar screen.

The pair opened a studio in their longtime neighbourhood, Brixton, which Chasez visited and found himself roped in to do a bit of singing. Millie, meanwhile, was sent the duo's way by Ratcliffe's parents. They had met her parents, who on discovering what their son did for a living asked if their music-mad daughter could meet them and ask for some tips.

"We gave her a bit of advice and said, 'While you're here, do you want to try singing on this?"' Buxton says.

Chasez, Millie and Kish Kash's diverse range of vocal guests all shared one common ingredient which saw them make it on to the record, Buxton says - personality. "It's not necessarily about whether they can sing perfectly, but whether they've got some character, some individuality and feeling."

Basement Jaxx have become regular turns on the Big Day Out circuit, and their imminent trip to Auckland will mark the start of their third Big Day Out tour.

"Big Day Out has been really good fun when we've done it in the past," Buxton says.

"It's a really good time to get away from England because it's usually pretty miserable then ... I can't wait to get down there."

On CD

* Who: Basement Jaxx, English dance duo

* What: New album Kish Kash out now

* Read Entertainment editor Russell Bailie's review of Kish Kash.

* Also: Performing at Big Day Out, Friday, January 16

- NZPA