We’ve been in such a torpor here I’ve completely slept on a few months of new music, falling back on the security blanket of the “shuffle all” function. My catch-up list is long, impressive and intimidating, including new stuff from heavy hitters like Phoenix, Moderat, The Juan Maclean, Fischerspooner (yes I still care about Fischerspooner fcuk you very much), Jarvis Cocker, Black Dice, Black Moth Super Rainbow, Cam’ron, The Field, Junior Boys, Meth and Red, Mos Def, Pet Shop Boys, and Sonic Youth (Jerome has the first and ultimate word by default but I still have to hear it). With so much in front of me, it can become even scarier to dive back in, but sometimes that process is facilitated by an old personal favorite kicking you right in the ass as you’re standing at the edge of the pool. That is what happened when I found the streams for new Basement Jaxx.

Music critics, even us psuedo-legit internet ones like yours truly, sometimes sincerely and sometimes falsely affect an attempted aura of objective detachment. And everybody knows this is bullshit. As much as the political may be personal, music fandom is very personal, and we are always going to have favorites, and we are always going to have sentimental attachments to the things we love that the media doesn’t seem to reflect as much.

Basement Jaxx are an odd duo to champion as underdogs. Most know that practical things like “albums” and “tours” don’t amount to a hill of beans in the moneymaking department when compared to things like “licensing tunes to commercials, TV shows, and movies.” Though Basement Jaxx has cleaned up internationally saleswise, is a big draw for their carnivalesque live spectacular at European festivals and they’re ubiquitous in the background of TV and film (nearly every time I spin a few albums for an acquaintance, I get a lot of “oh, that song…from that commercial…”), they have never seemed to have registered as an important and amazing act in the music geek communities I’ve encountered.

That stings because, after being one of those great British electronic duos to emerge in the mid-to-late ’90s with a progressive and innovative take on House, they have sunk in over this decade as one of my favorite album artists, with each release getting both more adventurous and experimental while more nakedly embracing a love of pop music for the radio. On the one hand, if they were embraced by the Clear Channel cabal, the work of Basement Jaxx in the aughts could captivate the vacant radio audience easily (which is why they slip so well into Pringles commercials, NFL coverage and the like). On the other hand, they are voracious consumers of international music with an uncanny ability to incorporate and maximize the most disparate of styles.

They should be the biggest pop team in the world for getting the best of both of them, given that they are experimental visionaries who make catchy tunes, but instead they wind up tweeners in American hipster culture. They’re a bit too underexposed and foreign to be embraced by commercial radio, and they’re a bit too open about loving pop music and taking it seriously to be embraced by the too cool for school blogosphere. They’re an anomaly in that they make thoughtful, satisfying, layered, thematic albums that happen to be full of wonderful radio songs. Consider the roster of guest stars they had on Kish Kash: JC from N’Sync, Souxsie Souix, and Michelle N’Dege Ochello. Basement Jaxx is equally at home with the height of manufactured radio culture, a punk goddess, and a journeywoman auteur. There is no easy angle for the indie world to approach them, and they wind up being ignored in discussion.

I remember when I finally got my homeboy Ty Bliss into Basement Jaxx via the dynamic klezmer pop (really) of “Hey U” from Crazy Itch Radio, an album that I half-contrarily and half-sincerely listed as the best of 2006 over at the late, lamented Relative Theory Records. When it finally clicked and he got it, I made some comment about the indienet dance night American throngs not allowing themselves to seriously consider Basement Jaxx because of all the bells and whistles (in protest to the current fetish for minimalism, Basement Jaxx have made a purposeful effort to stay maximalist in every nook and cranny of their music). Ty made the very funny and true response that Basement Jaxx is one of the few entities that not just metaphorically, but literally, uses a lot of bells and whistles in their work.

Anyway, my funk has been penetrated by the new Basement Jaxx single, “Raindrops”, from the forthcoming Scars album. The infectious and slightly sad track does not disappoint (on this and some other streaming tracks you can hear a bit of influence from Animal Collective and the aforementioned Black Moth Super Rainbow, punched up with that Basement Jaxx dance mastery). To my ears, it is heaven. I recommend it highly and want to make a few more friends who love the Jaxx. You can stream the new stuff on their official site and myspace. The video is pure kaleidoscopic psychedelic pleasure, with a very stripper heavy and Busby Berkley bent, like what you’d like Burning Man to be, all artistically decorated exotic dancers and ecstasy without the prevailing community of obscenely rich and naked Sillicone Valley freaks. The video can be seen here.

And, just like that, I’m excited about new music again!