Basement Jaxx Prep New Album, Clear Up Label Rumours

Posted on Nov 4th 2009 4:30PM by Joshua Ostroff
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Basement Jaxx may have just released their fifth album, 'Scars,' a month ago and dance floors may still be filling for their latest club hit 'Raindrops,' but Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe have already got another record in the can.

"We're at a crossroads or a roundabout. This was the point we were always getting to," Buxton tells Spinner, referring to their now-completed five-album deal with XL Recordings. "We've actually done a sixth album which is coming out, it's all finished, called 'Zephyr.'"

The eight-song, 35-minute EP, which is due this winter and can be streamed on their website, was originally intended as a companion disc to 'Scars' before, according to Buxton, "everyone said that was a bad idea, that people don't want a double-album, which is probably right." It also allows the largely instrumental, "Pink Floyd-y" track 'Zephyr' to be heard separately from their current clubby, collaborator-filled full-length.

"We forgot about the dancefloor and the live shows," he explains. "People who liked 'Remedy' and 'Where's Your Head At' might not like it. But the mastering engineer said it reminded him of doing some of our first EPs."

'Zerphyr' will be released by XL, despite the fact that Buxton has been going around telling everyone they're off the label. "I've been saying I assumed that we'd be dropped because that's what record labels do, but we hadn't actually talked to them about it at all," Buxton admits. "We're having a meeting with them in the next week or so, so we'll see what they have to say then.

"We haven't decided what we're going to do next, anyway. I don't think we want to make another five Basement Jaxx albums because that doesn't seem relevant to the modern world. Making albums, I don't know if that's even relevant anymore."

So what is relevant?

"We might stop for a few months because I want to try and make some surreal comedy," he grins. "Imagine Oscar Wilde, slapstick and [Salvador] Dali all put together in a bundle."