Mutiny UK: In The Now

Mimicry usually ranks low on the desirability scale in any art form, but when it comes to dance music and Basement Jaxx, rip-offs can serve as crucial flights of inspiration. For reasons that speak to both their startling inventiveness and the blandness endemic to so much house music, even the plainest Basement Jaxx tracks play in a largely different league than most of their supposed equals. Those waiting for a Jaxxward paradigm shift needn't get too excited, but Mutiny UK's In The Now offers a welcome step in the right direction. First given a 2001 English release in a slightly different form, the album grabs wholesale from the Basement Jaxx trick bag, running the nuanced deep-house nerviness of the singles compilation Atlantic Jaxx Recordings against occasional song bits worthy of Rooty. They're by no means underground secrets, but the purloined siren wiggle and robo-funk hums of "Midnight Lady" cast Mutiny UK as a smartly redemptive rehash act from the onset. "Secrets" follows in kind, twisting an otherwise straightforward deep-house track with shifty ideas that pop up every few bars. Save for a handful of average house odes in the middle, In The Now bends and wrinkles with sublime restlessness; barely a moment goes by without a pause for a little extra thwack on the hi-hat, a comely equalizer fade, or a clever snatch of diva swoon. Even the limp lite-jazz saxophones on "Keep Love" can't besmirch a bassline straining to squeeze more notes than the marketplace requires into its short riff-span. Mutiny UK owes a lot to elemental-house purists like Masters At Work, but the farmyard squeals of "Infectious" and the lurching funk squeeze of "The Virus" follow a blueprint all the better for its crinkliness.