I have been playing Romeo for twenty five years and it has never once failed me. That is not nostalgia talking, it is a working observation. The record still does something to a room in Seoul in 2026, to people who were not born when it came out, and there are not many records from 2001 I can say that about.
Felix Buxton and Simon Ratcliffe are the reason a lot of us stopped thinking about dance music as a genre and started thinking about it as a place you could put anything. This piece is partly an account of what they did and partly an argument that the live band mattered more than the DJ set, which is not something I say often about anybody.
Brixton First, Everything Else After
The name is literal. Basement Jaxx began as a club night the two of them ran in Brixton in the mid nineties, and Atlantic Jaxx was the label they built to release their own records and their friends’ records when nobody else was going to. The early EPs sound exactly like what they were: two people with a studio, a sound system and a room full of people to test things on the same week they made them.
That sequence is the part most write ups skip, and I think it explains everything that followed. They had a room before they had an audience. The singers, the horn parts, the absurd costumes, all of it came out of a night where they could watch what worked from four feet away. Plenty of producers now get that loop backwards, building a record for a festival stage they have never stood on, and you can hear it.
Remedy and Rooty Are Albums, Which Is Rarer Than It Sounds
Remedy in 1999 and Rooty in 2001 are two of the very few dance records from that stretch you can still play start to finish. Red Alert, Rendez-Vu, Jump N Shout, then Romeo, Where’s Your Head At, Jus 1 Kiss. Those are songs. They have verses and hooks and a shape that survives being taken out of a club and played in a car.
The distinction I keep coming back to is that a track fills eight minutes and a song survives the format it was made for. Kish Kash in 2003 won them a Grammy and is the record where the risk taking went furthest. Rooty is still the one I would hand to somebody who had never heard them.
The Live Band Was One of the Best Shows in Dance Music
There are two Basement Jaxx and the gap between them is wider than it is for almost any other act. Felix and Simon behind a pair of decks is a very good DJ set. The full live show, with the horn section and the singers and the costume changes and the general air of a carnival that has broken into a venue, was something else entirely, and most people under thirty five have never seen it.
Losing that format for fifteen years was a real loss to live electronic music, which is why the 2026 run matters more than a tour announcement usually does. More on that below.
What They Taught Me About Programming
The lesson I took and still use is that contrast beats intensity. A Jaxx set goes from a salsa break to a two step bassline to something that is essentially a pop song, and it works because every turn is committed to completely. Nothing is played as a wink. When I drop something unexpected in a basement at two in the morning, what makes it land is not the surprise, it is playing it like I mean it.
Korean rooms are good for this. The crowd here is less genre policed than a London crowd and more willing to follow a set that moves, which is one of the few real advantages of a scene that grew up without one dominant sound. I have argued that at more length in the Seoul sound piece.
Where Basement Jaxx Actually Are in 2026
The Good, and It Is Genuinely Good News
Basement Jaxx are playing their full live show again for the first time in over fifteen years. Six Australian dates in March 2026 across Brisbane, Adelaide, Sydney, Melbourne, Meredith and Fremantle, then Manchester on 28 March and London on 2 April, plus a headline slot at Big Feastival.
The distinction matters more than a tour announcement usually does. Basement Jaxx have two entirely different existences: Felix and Simon behind decks, which is a very good DJ set, and the full live band, which was one of the best live shows in dance music and which most people under thirty five have never seen. Horns, singers, costumes, chaos. Losing that format for fifteen years was a real loss to live electronic music and getting it back is the single most interesting thing on this list.
The Bad
There has been no studio album since Junto in 2014. Twelve years. The live return is a return to a catalogue rather than a new chapter, and the honest reading is that the pair have been working on other things and returning to Basement Jaxx as an occasion rather than a career. Which is a legitimate way to run a band. It is just not the same as being an active one.
There is also a broader thing worth naming, because it is not really about them. The reason a fifteen year gap in a live show is possible at all is that the economics of touring a large band playing dance music got very difficult, and the acts that survived that shift mostly did it by shrinking to two people and a laptop. Basement Jaxx putting the full show back on the road is expensive and slightly defiant, and I hope it works, because it is the format that most needs someone to prove is still viable.
Have Basement Jaxx Played Korea?
Four times, which is more than any act I have written about on this site, and I had it wrong before. Ultra Korea was the wrong place to look.
- 25 July 2009, Jisan Valley Rock Festival, Icheon
- 27 February 2010, Club EDEN, Seoul, in the Ritz-Carlton basement in Gangnam. ₩50,000 a ticket
- 14 August 2012, Super Sonic, SK Olympic Handball Arena
- 23 May 2015, Seoul Jazz Festival, Olympic Gymnastics Arena
Look at the spread. A rock festival, a Gangnam club night, a Summer Sonic spin-off and a jazz festival, inside six years. Four completely different Korean promoter ecosystems, which tells you they were not being booked by one person with a relationship. They were genuinely wanted here by several.
Then it stopped in 2015, and here is the part that actually bothers me.
They are having a real revival. Coachella 2025 relaunched the full live production for the first time in over a decade. And on 25 July 2026 they played the Green Stage at Fuji Rock, full live show, running Good Luck, Bingo Bango, Jump n Shout, Do Your Thing, Red Alert and Romeo.
So the band came back to Asia this summer with the whole production, eleven years after their last Seoul date, and Korea got skipped. The dates announced for the rest of 2026 are London, Ibiza, New York and Manchester. Nothing here.
Some of that is structural rather than anyone snubbing us. A full live Basement Jaxx show needs a room size and a licence category that Korea makes genuinely awkward, which is a thing I have written about elsewhere on this site. But Fuji Rock solved it and Korea has festivals that could.
What I Actually Think
Rooty and Remedy are two of the very few dance albums from that period that still work start to finish rather than as a source of singles, and the reason is that Felix and Simon were writing songs rather than tracks. That sounds like a small distinction and it is the whole thing. A track fills eight minutes. A song survives the format it was made for, which is why Romeo and Good Luck still land in a room full of people who were not born when they came out.
I would go a long way to see the full band. If they ever bring it to Asia I will be in the front row, and I have never once said that about a DJ set.
Frequently Asked Questions
Have Basement Jaxx played in Korea?
Four times: Jisan Valley Rock Festival in July 2009, Club EDEN in Gangnam in February 2010, Super Sonic in August 2012 and Seoul Jazz Festival in May 2015. Nothing since.
Are Basement Jaxx touring again?
Yes, and properly. Coachella 2025 relaunched the full live production for the first time in over a decade, and they played the Green Stage at Fuji Rock on 25 July 2026. Dates for the rest of 2026 are in London, Ibiza, New York and Manchester.
Why did Basement Jaxx stop touring the live show?
The full production is expensive and logistically heavy, which is the ordinary reason bands like this shrink to a DJ set. The 2025 Coachella relaunch is the first sign that the economics work again.
Which Basement Jaxx album should I start with?
Remedy or Rooty. Both still work start to finish rather than as a source of singles, because Felix and Simon were writing songs rather than tracks.
Why do they skip Korea now?
Partly structural. A full live show needs a room size and licence category that Korea makes awkward, which is covered elsewhere on this site. But Fuji Rock managed it in July 2026 and Korea has festivals that could.
Sources
- Stereoboard on the 2026 Australian and UK live dates
- Rolling Stone Australia on the tour
- Big Feastival 2026 headline announcement
- setlist.fm and Korean promoter archives for the 2016 and 2018 Korean dates, checked for a Korean date
If this profile has something wrong in it, or if you are connected to the artist and would like a correction or a takedown, contact me and I will act on it.
Written from Seoul, by someone who has been in the booth for more than 25 years. More on the site, or book a DJ.
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