"I guess you could say we've been experimenting," says Propellerheads Alex Gifford about the four-year wait for the British electronic duo's follow-up to its debut LP, Decksandrumsandrockandroll. "About the time the last record came out, it just seemed [there was] a saturation of similar kinds of music so we just started to poke around in slightly different directions to see what we could come up with. We ended up nearly finishing a record a couple of times, but both times decided it wasn't really that fresh and there's no point of doing more of the same."

Gifford says the duo (which also includes Will White) are back on track and will whittle their bag of thirty songs down to twelve for the as-yet-untitled album due out early next year on DreamWorks. Among the surprises include Canadians kd lang and Rufus Wainwright dueting on the song "Welcome Home," and New York drag queen Joey Arias singing Billie Holiday-style on "Lately."

The Propellerheads have also been recruiting Debbie Harry. "She's such a sweetheart and such an icon, and I think I've got an amazing song for her," Gifford says. "The thing is to write songs for people, for that singer particularly, that not only suits their voice, but their personality. Like try to imagine their ideal song. With [Decksandrumsandrockandroll's] 'History Repeating,' I tried to imagine what Shirley Bassey's ideal song would be now . . . and tried to write that."

According to Gifford, the Propellerheads' second effort will contain more traditional song structures, taking cues from classic R&B and soul, but that fans shouldn't worry about a complete change of direction. "The sound will be familiar, that sort of crunchy warm sound -- because that's what we like," he says. "I'm feeling very confident about it now and the songs are corking!"

JOLIE LASH
(May 8, 2002)