Most Popular
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Barack Obama and Me
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Mescaline on the Mexican Border
Texas is the only state in the country where peyote is sold legally. Really.
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Little Bitty Burger Barn
"It's okay to be little bitty in the big city" is an apt slogan for this new burger joint, where sliders rule
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Ghost Town CFS: Carriage House Cafe
Step back in time — to a spooky old carriage barn with a monster chicken-fried steak
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Barack Obama and Me (251)
It was the year 2000 and I was a young hungry reporter in Chicago covering a young hungry state legislator
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Save Lobo: A Siberian Husky Mix is Sentenced to Die (28)
Why? Because he's big and intimidating and because one family complained about him over and over again
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A Prison Cover-up During Hurricane Rita (15)
For days after the storm, inmates in Beaumont lived without A/C, electricity or hot meals. Press releases kept saying everything inside was fine. Guards and prisoners agree — that was nothing but B.S.
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge? (7)
All This Useless Beauty
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HoustonHipHop.com Relaunch Party (5)
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Are You Hot Enough for Citizen Lounge?
All This Useless Beauty
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Tired of the Hype, But That's All There Is
Next month, Houston gets to be a cool kid. But only for a week.
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The improbable redemption of Ashlee Simpson
"La La" Love You
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Rap's Rapidly Vanishing Female MC
The Why Chromosome
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A New Official State Song for Texas?
A case for a new — or different, anyway — state song
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Over the Weekend: Fotos, Dogs and Sausage. And Hannah Montana Too.
08:50AM 03/10/08 -
Friday Night: Wilco at Verizon Wireless Theater
05:04PM 03/10/08 -
Spring Training Doesn’t Count, Except for When It Does
04:29PM 03/10/08 -
Sausage Fest: Bangers and Mash at Red Lion Pub
11:40AM 03/08/08
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By Michael Musto
Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe, the British DJ/producers who make up Basement Jaxx, have never worried about fitting in musically. Rather, they make everything fit into their music. On Remedy, their debut, Buxton and Ratcliffe rebelled against the restrictions of the four-on-the-floor house beat, incorporating many different strains of music into that genre's rigid structure. With their next album, Rooty, they didn't even bother with the house configuration, choosing instead to make a genre-free/pangenre (depending on how you want to look at it) mash-up that sounded like a satirical take on high-energy television commercials. The duo's latest, Kish Kash, goes a step further with its intensely modern, near-futuristic amalgamation of the largest assortment of styles to date.
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They want to Jaxx you up: Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe pour a bucket of diverse sounds in a sonic blender.
Kish Kash plays host to such high-profile singers as 'N Sync's JC Chasez, Me'Shell NdegéOcello, Siouxsie Sioux and the Bellrays' Lisa Kekaula, while bringing attention to lesser-known singers such as Cotlyn Jackson, Phoebe and Dizzee Rascal (recent recipient of the much-touted Mercury Music Prize in the UK). With all of these collaborations, however, the Jaxx focus less on working around the styles the vocalists are known for, and more on bringing out new vocal possibilities with each. Rascal's snarls are set against a Middle Eastern melody on "Lucky Star," Kekaula screams against the up-tempo blasts of "Good Luck," and Chasez's high pitches are looped and messed with to an agreeable point of no recognition on "Plug It In."
Kish Kash's boundary-free punk attitude allows for dense layering of styles, creating a hard-to-pinpoint hybrid that is accessible as opposed to congested. Any confusion you might expect to feel upon hearing the juxtaposition of punk, soul, funk, dance, etc. is completely wiped away by Basement Jaxx's elaborate yet meticulous arrangements, leaving you pleasantly knocked out.
