With artists like Nelly Furtado, Ice Cube, Perry Farrell and Grant Lee Phillips lending their voices to Paul Oakenfold's album Bunka, properly representing the album on tour posed a challenge for the DJ. Oakenfold briefly considered the logistics of bringing the guest singers on the road with him and then decided to do the only reasonable thing: Leave them at home . . . well, sort of.

Instead, Oakenfold's live show will feature pre-recorded footage of some of the singers performing their tracks. "I just wanted to do something that was kind of pushing the boundaries," he says. "The first hour, I will DJ and the second hour, we'll do as live as possible. We've got a drummer, guitar, bass and the singers are on a thirty-foot screen behind us. Imagine this, we would put [Crazy Town's] Shifty Shellshock to a blue screen and there'd be three of us below the screen." The three he refers to are Oakenfold himself on keyboards, John Tonks (Tricky) on drums, and Tim Hutton (Groove Armada) on guitar and bass.

Bunkka, released in June but climbing the charts again thanks to hit single "Starry Eyed Surprise," is Oakenfold's first proper album. "I've made quite a lot of music under pseudonyms but never really had the desire to make an album until a few years ago," he says. "I kind of got bored with what was going on in the dance scene and just felt I wanted a bigger challenge: to make a record based on songs and singers."

Part of Oakenfold's vision for the project involved the idea of dislocation, putting established singers in unexpected contexts. "Grant Lee Phillips is realistically a rock & roll singer who's never done anything like this before," Oakenfold says. "So when I met up with him, I said, 'Let's use a cutting edge breakbeat sound with a melodic vocal that's really uplifting.'"

Oakenfold also recently revamped "The James Bond Theme" for the new flick Die Another Day. "I put breakbeats on the drums, and we added our own guitar lines," he says. "It was probably the hardest mix I've ever done because it's so familiar and to try to get away from that familiarity is really difficult. You needed to know it was 'Bond' and you needed to know it was a cutting edge version you'd never heard before. It's 'Bond,' but completely different."

Paul Oakenfold tour dates:

11/25: Miami, Opium Garden Nightclub
11/27: New York, Exit
11/28: New York, Escape
11/29: Dallas, The Red Jacket
12/2: Atlanta, Eleven 50
12/3: Boston, Avalon Ballroom
12/4: Washington, DC, 9:30 Club
12/6: Detroit, State Theater
12/7: Chicago, Riviera
12/10: Denver, The Fillmore
12/13: Vancouver, Commodore Ballroom
12/14: Seattle, Northgate Theater
12/15: Portland, OR, Crystal Ballroom
12/18: San Francisco, The Warfield
12/20: San Diego, 4th & B
12/21: Los Angeles, Wiltern

COLIN DEVENISH
(November 1, 2002)