I'll admit it right up front: I thought I'd outgrown disco. And when I say "outgrown," I don't mean I was into it a some sort of post-adolescent thrill, hung around on the scene for a bit then gave it up for the next fad. I was much too young for that. I grew up listening to disco - from Donna Summer to Chic, disco was the music of my mid- '70s childhood. And then, as with my Star Wars action figures and my Captain America Underoos, disco got put away as I aged, replaced in my affections by G.I. Joe, synth-pop and old school rap. At some point, probably around the time I discovered the Ramones and the Dead Kennedys, I began to regard disco as anathema - the exact opposite of what I was all about.
Funny how things change - you start out listening to punk, then industrial, which makes you curious about the broader spectrum of electronic music, which leads to the eventual discovery of Detroit techno (via DJs like Richie Hawtin and Sandra Collins, who themselves have industrial roots), and suddenly you're checking out house music. And house, as everyone likes to conveniently ignore, is just disco with drum loops. What the fuck?
So along comes Basement Jaxx, the British duo whose debut platter Remedy introduced the world to the sounds of the popular house offshoot known as garage (if you wanna sound really hip or really pretentious, pronounce like the Brits do: "garridge" or get granular and call it out by sub-sub-sub genres: two-step, speed garage, punk garage, whatev), who've slowly morphed themselves into a disco band for the 21st century, eventually blending their salsa and soul-inflected loops with a full-on live production complete with solid gold dancers and everything.
The group recently released a follow-up to Remedy - Rooty - whose success is increasing the momentum that its predecessor gave to the band; they're currently unstoppable, as far as dance acts go, generating heavy buzz and heavier beats wherever they touch down. And with the release of Atlantic Jaxx Recordings, a collection of the groups' early singles nestled in alongside tracks by other bands on their med Atlantic Jaxx UK-indie record label, they deftly point out that this success was pretty much inevitable.
Hop in the way-back machine for a second and travel back to the early '90s. London party-goers Felix Burton and Simon Ratcliffe are fighting back seasickness while dancing at a boat party on the Thames when the paths of their respective destinies merge. The confluence is to form an eventual superhighway of funk-affected underground R&B that first rears its groovy head at an illegal club in a South London Mexican restaurant. Shortly thereafter, 'round about 1994, the duo launches Atlantic Jaxx, their indie label, and begin making dance music history; hit EPs ("Undaground," "Summer Daze") get them some major radio attention while cementing their relationship with dance diva Corrina Joseph, who lent her pipes to the party smash "Samba Magic."
These early days are gleefully recounted on the Atlantic Jaxx compilation, which re-introduces the duo's early efforts while giving some space to the mostly excellent solo work of their collaborators from way back. The BJs themselves present most of the tracks here (seven of the album's eleven), most of them less gritty than their more recent work (the abrasive "Set Your Body Free" is an exception). The aforementioned collab with Corrina Joseph, "Samba Magic," pops up here to shine a bright light on the duo's Latin music influences. Throughout the comp., heavy chunks of Latin dance rhythms collide with ass-bumping kick drums and Basement Jaxx's unquenchable affinity for house music - a tendency that culminates about halfway through the album with two tracks: Basemant Jaxx's infectious salsa jam, "Eu Nao" and the Brazillian-based, horn-laced "Belo Horizonti" by The Heartists.
The group's collaborators, meanwhile, produce both the album's crest and trough, with Corrina Joseph doing a sparkling diva turn on the ecstatic "Live Your Life with Me," a song that is, for all intents and purposes, a disco track. It's got a wicked walking bassline the likes of which haven't been heard since 1980, and Joseph's almost (but not quite) domineering vocal workout places her in the leagues of by-gone chart-toppers like Thelma Houston and Alicia Bridges (we suspect that Joseph, too, likes the nightlife, loves to boogie). The low point arrives a few songs later, when Ronnie Richards arrives to cludge his way through an otherwise catchy dance track, smearing his awful attempt at a Horace Andy impression all over a pristine pairing of deeply grooving bass and body-moving beats. It's the kind of track that makes you re-evaluate - even treasure - the dance instrumental.
That said, it's no mean feat to churn out a compilation with just one clunker (and, for that matter, a clunker with only one fatal flaw). It's interesting to do a back-to-back comparison of Atlantic Jaxx Recordings with Rooty, too, just to hear how group' early proclivities run through some of its current tracks, and appear not at all in others. Kind of like looking though one's own musical tastes past and present, and discovering, shockingly, that despite one's punkier predisposition, one's disco days haven't quite died after all.
Sean Flinn | October 18, 2001
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