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BINGO BANGO Henry Northmore catches up with Basement Jaxx as they get ready to headline RockNess for a second time
I t’s Basement Jaxx effortless ability to bring seemingly disparate elements together that makes them such a fascinating live act. Techno is welded to Latin while house tangos with calypso from the upbeat mania of ‘Red Alert’ to the punk funk delirium of ‘Where’s Your Head At?’. It’s no wonder RockNess have invited them back to headline for a second time after a storming set back in 2009.
‘I think categorisation can be helpful but with
us sometimes it’s slightly confusing,’ explains Simon Ratcliffe who makes up one half of the Jaxx alongside Felix Buxton. ‘We have never attached ourselves to one scene; if you attach yourself to one scene and that scene goes down you go down with it. So we don’t want to be on one ship, we’re pirates really just plundering then moving on.’ good times. This orchestrated chaos becomes a carnival of colour and sound under Ratcliffe and Buxton’s direction. ‘We’ve got some good people around us and they’re great performers and we just play off them. We encourage everyone to do what they do to the max, “don’t be shy this is your chance”. So we make the live shows more energetic than the albums.’
Their live shows have become synonymous with a riot of dancers, singers, feathers and The pair first met in Brixton bonding over a love of DJ duo Masters at Work. Ratcliffe
58 THE LIST 16 May–13 Jun 2013