But thrillingly, Remedy surpasses its own buzz. It's giddy, manic and magic, a 15-track shot of soulful, propulsive musical ecstasy that will thrill even those who are bored and baffled by most club music. Remedy is a house record, but it consists of songs, not merely mixable tracks meant to form the building blocks of a DJ set. When release finally comes, the rush is almost sexual. In recent years, cross-genre hybridization has become incredibly trendy, especially in electronic music.
Remedy is especially bold in combining influences, but the disparate elements never feel gimmicky.
F OR ALL its musical adventuring, though, the band's clearest influences are soul, funk and garage. Absurd as it may seem to try to trace the musicology behind such sentiments, there's nothing trite about the amount of bliss packed into these gems. Drum 'n' bass is music about flux and instability, while house and techno, with their metronomic heartbeat pulse, are reassuringly regular. As the Basement Jaxx show, though, rapture can be just as real as rupture. At their best, house's joyful lyrics function as a kind of secular gospel, a balm against the cold, hard world.