Basement Jaxx: Kish Kash

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

(Herald rating: * * * *)

The third album by the London dance duo of Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe -who are returning to the Big Day Out - finds them regaining the inventive spark that was largely missing from predecessor Rooty. Again they're thinking outside the clubland square.

It helps that their guest-list seems a valiant attempt to make the pop world a smaller place. The voices include punk's great aunt Siouxsie Sioux, funk-soul diva Me'shell Ndegeocello, celebrated young Brit rapper Dizzee Rascal, JC Chasez of 'NSync fame and Lisa Kekaula from Los Angels band the Bellrays. And if Prince couldn't make it to the sessions, he's there in spirit on tracks like the sex-funk Ndegeocello-sung Right Here's The Spot. While Chasez's Plug It In is as Jacko-funky as anything bandmate Justin Timberlake has managed with the Neptunes.

Elsewhere, opener Good Luck (featuring Kekaula) suggests the Supremes' Baby Love before it becomes a blur of R&B fireworks and rampaging beat. Rascal's Lucky Star also sparks brightly over its Bollywood-funk backing, and Sioux's deadpan vocal over the fuzzy breakbeats helps make Cish Cash [sic] possibly the maddest-sounding thing here.

Among the other highlights is the wigged-out funkadelic Supersonic, a fine companion to their earlier club-crossover anthems.

If there are a few tracks - like the closing Feels Like Home - that show Basement Jaxx don't do pensive balladry or instrumental grooves nearly as well as they do madcap dancepop, it doesn't stop Kish Kash being an album that manages to party hard as well as smart.

Label: XL Recordings