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Basement Jaxx peels back layers on ‘Scars’

“SCARS,” Basement Jaxx (Ultra/XL)

After a decade of everything-plus-the-kitchen-sink house music, Basement Jaxx has settled into a more reflective mode on the new “Scars.”

Perhaps the British duo is ceding the eclectic throne to the more mainstream-successful Black Eyed Peas, or maybe Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton are mellowing and just wanted to take a logical step after the smoother approach they took on 2006’s “Crazy Itch Radio.”

Whatever, in contrast to the diva-dominated kitsch in Basement Jaxx’s past, “Scars” is loaded with soulful vocals by male guest singers — as on “My Turn” (with Lightspeed Champion), “D.I.S.tractionz” (with Jose Hendrix Ndelo), “Gimme Somethin’ True” (with Jose James), “She’s No Good” (with Eli “Paperboy” Reed) and “Feelings Gone” (with Sam Sparro). And although the latter two have slap-happy bounce, the others are more gentle than traditional Basement Jaxx.

Meanwhile, the new release also offers a reggae-based “Saga” and the waltzing surf-ballad “A Possibility,” and it eases out with a concluding trio of soft tracks that includes the minimalistic “Stay Close” featuring a smoldering vocal by Lisa Kekaula.

Ratcliffe and Buxton prove to be crafty with their subtler arrangements, if not pioneering. Plus, as disheartening as Basement Jaxx’s calmer demeanor may be to longtime fans, “Scars” does come through with brilliant moments of high-strung techno. An inside-out rhythm accents the title track, “Raindrops” is joyfully buoyant, and the cartoonish “What’s a Girl Gotta Do?” is a crunchy, New Orleans-flavored playground of sound. Even better are the rubbery vibrations of “Twerk” featuring Yo Majesty (and a nod to Michael Sembello’s “Maniac”) and the propulsive “Day of the Sunflowers (We March On),” where an unshackled Yoko Ono gets her freak on as only she can.

“Scars” is a curious, and not entirely rewarding, shift for Basement Jaxx, but the effervescence is still there.

Rating (five possible): 3-1/2

Ndegeocello’s erratic touch has ring of truth

“DEVIL’S HALO,” Meshell Ndegeocello (Mercer Street)

Love songs are popular music’s attempt to package, summarize and rationalize one of our most irrational emotions. So if nothing else, Meshell Ndegeocello’s mind-bending “Devil’s Halo” is refreshing for its honesty, its surrender to the inexplicable with an unapologetic lack of reason.

Still, her head-trip is likely to prove too austere, her unconventional framework too untethered for many listeners.

The vocalist and bass player makes generous use of echo effects and keyboard fills on “Devil’s Halo” as she strays from her past work (e.g. neo-soul) into an ill-defined territory that’s more experimental than genre-tied.

Opener “Slaughter” is arranged in alternating bouts of crashing chorus and subdued verses as she warns, “Don’t say you love me, I’ll run away,” and her study in contrasts marches on from there: Ndegeocello unspools spacious, jazz-like textures for “The One On,” succumbs to the nervous energy of “White Girl” and staggers through “Hair of the Dog.”

She also turns in a stupendously offbeat cover of Ready for the World’s “Love You Down,” deadpanning her way through the chorus as if it’s a threat, with only bass jolts shocking the track out of a narcotic stupor. And while “Lola’s” portrayal of a hard-luck bisexual (“She drinks until she passes out on the floor”) is a pop song at its core, the irregular, hustling beat keeps it off-balance.

Ndegeocello has a few other moments that resemble traditional rock/pop — an exceptional one in the shimmering rhythm of “Bright Shiny Morning” plus some in the glowing bliss of “Die Young” and acoustic closer “Crying in Your Beer” (with its ominous line, “Don’t let me die alone”). Yet “Devil’s Halo” is dominated by tracks that are mere hints of “songs,” near-hookless cuts that cave under swarming ambience. It’s no less surreal than love itself, but that doesn’t make it a crowd pleaser.

Rating: 3-1/2

Dada Life’s butchered beats supply the heat

“JUST DO THE DADA,” Dada Life (The Hours)

Olle Corneer and Stefan Engblom are a couple of dancefloor cutups.

That’s not to say the Stockholm-based duo also known as Dada Life makes funny dance music. It means the two literally chop electro/techno songs into bits and pile their fragmented pieces together on “Just Do the Dada.”

The result is dance music for those with extreme ADD or at least those who continuously find the need to divert from the task at hand: While every song on “Just Do the Dada” eventually lands on a solid groove, each winds its way through glitchy spells to get there and typically deconstructs after the fact. It’s a process that defies conventional wisdom that a rhythmic section must have continuity to create effective dance music, even more so than other genres. Bombing out that foundation destroys our internal clocks, which could create anarchy in the nightclubs.

But following the concept of the Dada movement, Dada Life must break the rules.

So savor the scintillation on “Just Do the Dada’s” tracks while you can — the bullying hitch in “Don’t Feed the Dada,” the bone-rattling bass of “Love Vibrations,” the wavering flutters of “Cheap Thrills for a Lost Generation,” the plunge and crackle of “Sweet Little Bleepteen.” Because no matter how alluring a moment may be, it will be short-lived — even if it buzzes back to taunt again.

Eventually the tease is tiresome and “Just Do the Dada’s” last few tracks feel more aimless than the others, which all seem at least fitfully superb.

But are these songs really that good, or do they merely seem that good because their brilliance is fleeting?

And if it’s illusion, does it even matter?

Rating: 3-1/2

© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel
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