The Info Fleamarket

When Basement Jaxx arrived in 1999 with their aptly titled debut ‘Remedy,’ the world was gaga for dance music. A decade later, the world’s gaga for, well, Lady Gaga.

But though the turn-of-the-millennium dance scene that briefly sent Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe into the pop stratosphere has either been appropriated by Black Eyed Peas or has retreated underground, the latest Basement Jaxx album, ‘Scars,’ shows their mutant house music is still going strong.

So as the 2000s close, Buxton reflects on Basement Jaxx’ first decade and tells us ‘where their heads’ at.’

I was cleaning my basement and came across a box of old CDs with ‘Remedy’ and ‘Rooty’ in it. I’d forgotten ‘Remedy’ was 10 years old.

Yeah, we’ve done the whole cycle now. We had a five-album deal with XL. We started with the ‘Remedy’ and finished with the ‘Scars,’ which is quite funny, really — getting to the source of the pain. We’ve just come out the other side, which is actually nice because we’ve been really busy for 10 years.

The North America party scene was really taking off when those first albums came out, so there was a vibrant subculture behind dance music.

There is actually a new wave of it now — electronic music is all alive again! It’s the slightly alternative kids. In the ’90s they’d have been listening to grunge and now they’re listening to dance. It’s in the mainstream, whereas before in America, to me, it was always a bit on the fringes, which I loved because it was the people who didn’t fit in and didn’t count. It was quite nice.