Basement Jaxx: Remedy (2LP, gold vinyl) [XL]

Why you'll love it

This gold vinyl 2LP set comes in a jacket with debossed, foil-blocked lettering and printed inner sleeves. Remedy reached No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart and holds an 88 on Metacritic.

This edition

• 2LP set
• Gold vinyl
• Debossed, foil-blocked jacket
• Printed inner sleeves
• Lyrics included

About the album

In the late 1990s, a lot of house music sounded like it had been assembled by very tidy robots. Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe, two DJs running club nights in Brixton, thought dance music had gone linear and a bit closed-minded, so they named their debut Remedy and set about curing it. XL Recordings put it out in May 1999.

Their antidote was a riot of colour: Latin horns, ragga vocals, disco strings, punk energy and hip-house swagger, often in the same track. "Red Alert" became their first No. 1 on the US Hot Dance Club Play chart, "Rendez-Vu" followed it to the top with flamenco guitar and a huge chorus, and "Bingo Bango" made it three in a row. "Jump N' Shout" is a raucous dancehall stomp, and "Yo-yo" and "Always Be There" keep the party moving between the hits.

Buxton said the album was about togetherness, the thing that drew him to house music in the first place. Twenty-odd years later it still clears the sofa at any party, which is rather the point of a remedy.

Also at Kops: more Basement Jaxx on vinyl · browse Electronic

Tracklist

Listen

On XL Recordings (cat# XL 129 LP2), a reissue of the 1999 album.