mixtape maestro (2.0)

A melancholy folk ballad about a romance’s failing underlined with a pounding dancefloor throb and squelchy electro accents? That’s hardly a brow-raiser in the “anything goes” music days of 2009, but that doesn’t stop Basement Jaxx and featured guest Lightspeed Champion‘s Scars collaboration “My Turn” from oozing delightful quirk at every corner.

Opening with a few seconds of wistfully lain acoustic guitar before being rocked to life with a gigantic-sized club pounce, “My Turn”‘s first-days-of-spring joviality would sound perfect backing one’s giddiment to a new romance’s beginnings, but somewhat oddly, it’s instead used to prop up Champion’s woeful narrative about a relationship that, despite his best efforts, seems unable to be saved.

“Broken down forever now/ We are losing what we found/ My heart is left alone in pieces,” he mews amidst the track’s shimmery electro tinkerings and ecstactic thump, an effective juxtoposition that presents him as the lone sad sap in a musical frame that signifies the rest of the world tauntingly celebrating the highs of being in love around him.

Scars arrives September 22nd.

DL: “My Turn” (alt)

While most of the blog-crit-hype that rewarded Basement Jaxx‘ comeback-of-sorts “Raindrops” was justifiable-it definitely ranked near the top of the list of the past season’s most summer-tastic entries-it still felt a little too reined-in, serving as an only quasi-reminder of the bursting-at-the-seams dance euphoria the duo reigned with on their first two masterpiece albums. Not to mention the lingering feeling that it would be mostly forgotten about by winter time.

Follow-up single “Feeling’s Gone” feels just as temporarily likable, but at least it serves the bonus treat of being the second greatest thing Sam Sparro’s Prince-spiked divo voice has ever been aligned with (for the hopeslessly confused, “Black & Gold” would chart first, of course).

One of the more straight-forward dance-pop entries to emerge from Basement Jaxx’ “mad scientist” lab, “Gone”‘s dense modern disco frame carries a few moments of pizazz (the single-finger keyboard plinks, the 4/4 hand claps), but it’s main selling point lands firmly on Sparro’s electric performance, which starts off all soulful assuredness before evolving into bursts of back-of-the-throat tingling shriek histrionics.

Can’t wait to hear what remixes come of this.

Bassment Jaxx’ Scars arrives September 22nd (Pre-order here).