At the turn of the century, Basement Jaxx’s Remedy perfectly married deranged big-beat with life-affirming soul and house. Their strongest work - Red Alert, and the Gary Numan-sampling Where’s Your Head At? in 2001, would soon become modern dance classics.
They bagged a Grammy in 2004 for their third album, Kish Kash. A year later, they headlined Glastonbury (filling in for Kylie Minogue), and brought their unique brand of colourful, sample-heavy electronic music to a global audience.
With a lifelong passion for tech, gear and the art of music production, it was inevitable that throughout the 2000s and 2010s, the duo behind the bangers - Simon Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton - became regular interviewees in our (now sadly closed) magazines, Computer Music and Future Music.
One such conversation, which stems from a Computer Music issue from 2013, was particularly insightful.
Previously unpublished to the web, our recent trawl through our archives led us to re-read this fascinating chat, in which Jaxx’s Simon Ratcliffe had some interesting reminisces about working with Yoko Ono on their 2009 psychedelic cut, Day of the Sunflowers.
“We were told by her manager that we were going to get an hour of her time on this particular day,” Ratcliffe told us. “So everything had to be ready. As soon as she arrived, we just went into work mode and made sure there was a vocal at the end of it. You can’t really say to Yoko Ono, ‘Sorry, I forgot to press record’, can you?”
Beyond working with Ono, this interview explores the pair’s love of the music-making process - and their love of the tactile, knob-and-fader-based approach to crafting their work in the studio.
Basement Jaxx - The Computer Music Interview (2013)
Basement Jaxx - The Computer Music Interview (2013)
“After the release of Scars in 2009, we felt like we needed a bit of break,” says Basement Jaxx’s Simon Ratcliffe. “We’d done six albums with XL, and we’d unfortunately got ourselves stuck in that endless cycle of album-tour-album- tour. It was time for a change.”
As well as signing a new deal with 37 Adventures, Ratcliffe and Felix Buxton have updated and upgraded their studio. “Well, you couldn’t really call the place where we were recording a studio,” laughs Ratcliffe. “It was a cramped, smelly, damp room in Brixton. I’m not knocking it, ’cause it served us well, but it was always supposed to be a temporary solution. We ended up recording there for 10 years! The new place is a bit more… professional.”
Now based in King’s Cross and working with engineer Warren Brown (who helped them set up the new studio), the duo are currently finishing off album number seven, Music, which will hopefully be released later this year. “What does it sound like?” Ratcliffe wonders aloud.
“Well, we want it to sound like us, but we also want something that’s contemporary without being all harsh and aggressive. There’s a lot of new music out there that seems to be screaming for attention, but it ends up sounding really ugly.
“From day one, Basement Jaxx have tried to make what I’d call modern soul music. Warm and beautiful, but always with an eye on the future.”
Computer Music: So, how’s the new place?
Simon Ratcliffe: “It looks like a proper studio, which is a real novelty for us. The room we had in Brixton has been responsible for some great music, but me and Felix were literally working out of each other’s pockets every day.
Just having that extra space has not only made a big difference to the atmosphere, but I think it’s actually changed how we work.
“In the past, everything was done together because we were there in that same room, just a few feet from each other. We’ve got a couple of different rooms in the new studio and that means one of us can disappear for a day to work on an idea and then present it to ‘the band’. If you’ve got more space, it tends to make things more relaxed.
“And one huge difference is that we’ve got a great new toy to play with – an SSL AWS 900 desk!”
CM: That’s a hell of an investment!
SR: “Yeah, but we’ve wanted one for a long time. Obviously, you don’t actually ‘need’ any desk in the studio these days, but we both prefer to have some faders and EQ knobs to play around with. Whenever we’re working on stuff, the desk sort of turns into an extra instrument – that probably comes from our love of old reggae and dub tunes.
“Yes, you can do EQ sweeps and mess around with levels inside the computer, but there’s no substitute for actually grabbing hold of a real knob on a decent EQ strip and doing it live. If you listen back to something like Fly Life [Jaxx single from 1997], the whole dynamic of the song was controlled by me and Felix on the desk.
“It was a Soundcraft Spirit 24-track desk and there was plenty of space to get ahold of the EQ knobs. We played in the main riff and I just started jamming on the desk, sweeping the low and high frequencies in opposite directions… creating that wonderful filtery whoosh.
“We don’t have to use the SSL if we don’t want to – we can work inside the computer – but it just gives us more options. And let’s not forget that it sounds amazing!"
CM: You’ve been working on Logic for a few years. Did it survive the move to King’s Cross?
SR: “There’s no point in changing something just for the sake of it, is there? Whenever we’re over in America, I seem to find Pro Tools in every professional studio, and there’s always talk about how much better it is for audio and editing, but Logic seems to do a bit of everything really well, which suits the way we work.
“Having said that, I’ll admit that we didn’t move up to DAWs until pretty late in the day – I think Kish Kash [2003] was the first album that we did on Logic. Me and Felix had been working with the Atari and Cubase since the very earliest days of Basement Jaxx, and we thought it was brilliant. OK, there was no audio facility, but that was never a problem for us – every time we did a vocal session, we’d stick it all onto DAT and sample the bits we needed.
“It was only when we got to know people like Erick Morillo that Logic really entered our world. We had a look at what it could do and just went, ‘Wow!’ After working with that old copy of Cubase, Logic felt like you were sitting down in the control room at NASA. You could sing into a microphone and the voice magically appeared inside the computer. Then, you could sing a different line and that would appear next to the first line. We couldn’t believe what we were hearing!
“We’ve still got the Atari and, occasionally, we have to switch it on when people ask to remix one of the old tracks – there are two whole albums and several singles stored on those floppy discs. I look at that strange-shaped monitor and I think, ‘How the hell did we manage to work with something so small?’ It seems so… Joe 90!”
CM: You’ve probably made a few bob since the release of Remedy in 1999. Does that mean the Macs are fully loaded with plugins, soft synths and digital goodies?
SR: “Er… no. I’ve never been what you’d call a gear junkie. C’mon, we all know that it’s not the gear that creates good music. Sure, I keep my ears open and I like to know what’s out there, but I always get suspicious when people say to me, ‘You definitely need such-and-such-a plugin or such-and-such-a synth.’
“And even if you’ve got the best computer and latest plugins, there’s still no guarantee that you’re going to get perfect results.
“Look, me and Felix have been making music a long time… we sort of know what we’re doing. We were working on some stuff for the new album last year, getting results that we thought were pretty damn good. Then we met a brilliant engineer called Warren Brown while we were doing the soundtrack to a documentary in LA. It was fairly obvious he knew his stuff, so we played him a track we’d been working on. Instantly, he made it sound better. He was routing things here, there and everywhere, and doing stuff that we hadn’t even thought of.
“Great music is not about the equipment… it’s about people and ideas.”
CM: Is there one piece of kit you couldn’t live without at the moment?
SR: “We have been using the Omnisphere a lot just lately. That’s probably our main synth – the sound is just so full and atmospheric. It sounds like a 3D synth!
Then there are some nice outboard bits and pieces like the Juno, the Korg MS-20, the Memorymoog, the Moog Voyager… and the Native Instruments set, of course, with Kontakt for piano and strings.
“But, to be honest, most Basement Jaxx sounds have always come from samples, and they’re still the backbone of what we do in the studio.”
CM: Using the EXS24?
SR: “Some sounds get dropped straight into the track as audio, but I think both of us like to work with a sampler. I grew up with Akais and I still like to throw a sound right across a keyboard, just to see what it sounds like when you play it as a chord or stick a whole load of pitchbend on it. I like the challenge of finding a decent loop point and being able to loop a sound to infinity.
“And there’s always a lot of fun to be had by putting lots of different sounds – especially percussion sounds – across a keyboard and jamming along to a song. You can often take yourself by surprise because you automatically end up doing the unexpected. It might be a weird noise or a blippy rhythm, but it can take you somewhere interesting.”
CM: We have to talk about rhythms. Obviously, they’re important to any dance track, but there always seems to be the added level of percussive complexity and groove in a Jaxx track. Is that you and Felix sitting in front of the computer for hours and hours?
SR: Yes and no. We don’t do it all in one go… we don’t sit there for two weeks programming every cymbal and kick drum. A rhythm track develops as the song develops. We might
start with just a couple of loops, but bit by bit, we add extra little splashes and hits. Some stay, some get taken away, some get put back in and added to.
“And we have been lucky enough to work with some great drummers and percussionists, too. It might be a case where we get them to add something to the basic idea, or we listen back to live recordings we’ve got in the library and add to what’s already in a track.
“That attention to rhythm detail is something that’s been there since day one.”
CM: What got you into music as a kid?
SR: “My dad’s record collection. He was a piano player and jazz lover, so there was always Dave Brubeck and Oscar Peterson drifting through the house. I think the first dance tune that caught my attention was Althea & Donna’s Uptown Top Ranking. Well, you wouldn’t really call it ‘dance’, would you – it’s reggae.
“Electronic music actually came to me via a DJ called Mike Allen who had a very, very early rap and electro show on Capital Radio. And, of course, there was Blue Monday by New Order in 1983.”
CM: Your dad was a piano player – did you play anything?
SR: “I played a bit of piano and guitar, and I persuaded my mum to buy me a Fostex X-26 four-track recorder. It was my mum’s only contribution to my future career, and I’ll thank her forever more. That’s where I learned how to mix, bounce down – the basics of putting a track together. Somewhere along the way, I picked up a couple of decks, an Alesis SR-16 drum machine and a delay pedal that had a three-second sampler. I’ve still got the Alesis, and it was used on some of the early Jaxx tracks.
“When rave happened, I started buying all these breakbeat albums, furiously sampling as much of it as I could into the delay pedal. The only way I could use a loop in one of my own tracks was if I fired it live from the pedal. I’d stick the Alesis down as a 16th-note guide track and then poke away at the pedal for five minutes, hoping the whole thing stayed in time. Eventually, I found out you could get whole albums of just looped breakbeats and started playing them in from my decks.
“My mates were very encouraging, and after one of them got some money from a car theft insurance payout, we decided to hire some proper gear and try to make a record. We got a reel-to-reel and an Akai sampler, but none of us knew the first thing about MIDI. We didn’t have a clue!
“Somehow, we managed to transfer this idea I’d worked up on the Fostex into our makeshift studio and that became my first ever single – it was called Tic Tac Toe, released on white label in 1992.”
CM: A long way from working with Yoko Ono at Stratosphere in New York! (Ono guested on the Jaxx track Day Of The Sunflowers)
SR: “You could say that!”
CM: What’s it like when one of the most famous women on the planet walks into the studio? Is there a bit of you that just goes, ‘Wow! It’s Yoko Ono!’
SR: “Yeah, but you’re also very aware that there’s a job to do and you need a result. We were told by her manager that we were going to get an hour of her time on this particular day, so everything had to be ready. As soon as she arrived, we just went into work mode and made sure there was a vocal at the end of it. You can’t really say to Yoko Ono, ‘Sorry, I forgot to press record’, can you?
“The strange thing about that whole experience was that she then agreed to do Later… with Jools Holland with us and, a few weeks after that, I bumped into her in Tokyo.
“I was there with my little girl, who was four at the time, and she came over to say hi. I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself. I was thinking, ‘Bloody hell, I’m mates with Yoko Ono!’”
Additional: Meet the Band
Basement Jaxx are known for performing with a full live band rather than hiding behind their laptops. Simon explains how it all came about…
“When we first started out, it was literally just me and Felix DJing, but that got expanded to include a conga player and a dancer. And then we got a vocalist. I suppose, once you get to that point, you automatically start thinking about a full live band, which eventually happened in 2003 with the Kish Kash album.
“A lot of the music for the live show is still programmed in the studio, but we have to look at it in a different way… you need to think what can be left out, what needs altering and what, if anything, needs changing. You start to look at the colour and shape of the music and try to work out how you can recreate that effect with a band.
“You also need to make sure there’s some room for manoeuvre. Everyone on stage is linked into the click track, but there has to be the option of extending a track or jamming on a groove. Felix is in charge of the desk… one of his jobs is giving us those options when we need them.
“That can create its own problems, though. We once invited a singer over from Belgium to come and play a show with us at some big festival and she was really excited. We started the show and it was going ridiculously well… the crowd were loving it and we were jamming all over the place. We finished the show and this girl is still standing there at the side of the stage. ‘Fuck! We forgot to do your song!’ Luckily, she forgave us.”
This interview was originally published in issue 195 of Computer Music in August 2013
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
“To call this simply a ‘gated fuzz pedal with an echo feature’ would be an injustice to its essence!”: Benson Amps teams up with Jessica Dobson for the awesome and unorthodox Deep Sea Diver Fuzz-Echo
“A fitting tribute to an artist who would have celebrated his 85th birthday”: John Lennon to be honoured with a commemorative coin
