It's about connections. Forget for a minute the big-beat banner that's flying over their heads, and concentrate instead on the other players in the Propellerheads' story. The Wall Of Sound label, the irreverent ying to Skint's yang in the big-beat world. Shirley Bassey, the legend who coaxed History Repeating into an entirely new realm. Dave Arnold, the new school John Barry who got the 'Heads suited and booted for a version of the James Bond theme On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Adidas using their bombastic Dive track on a series of adverts. In the words of the Stereo MCs, Alex Gifford and Will White have truly got themselves connected.
Yet this in itself is not really enough to explain why the Bath-based pair, two mild-mannered yet highly experienced musicians, have become the year's next extra-large thing. Their debut album, Decksandrumsandrockandroll, is a significant clue, however; an album with an exuberant, barmy mix of hip-hop, funk, soul, techno and the loudest breakbeats you can find. While many of the reviews for the album have pointed fingers time and time again towards that other pair of electronic big-beat barons, the Chemical Brothers, Decksandrums bounces on a rather poppier trampoline than either of the two Chemical albums to date.
Naturally, any chat with the Propellerheads is a mesmerising round of names, collaborations and plans. Yet they themselves can offer but a few reticent clues regarding their current flavour-of-the-year status. "We didn't set out to be popular," claims Alex. "We're just doing what we like. If people like it, we're not going to say no, are we? And if someone says `we want to use your music in our ad', you say `yes' because you want to pay your rent at the end of the month and pay the other bills too. What we're doing, then, is trying to strike a balance between what we want to do and paying the bills."
Allowing your music to be used in an advert has become something of a standard nixer for both nascent and established pop acts. From the Lightning Seeds and MPeople endorsing cars to Goldie's tacit vote for a certain hi-fi brand, the stars do tend to come out for advertising types - when, of course, they have a large bag of cash to pass over to the artist. Yet, as Alex points out, they could have done a lot more of this sort of stuff. "The cash was useful but we've also said no to others. People know all about it when you say yes, but not so much when you say no."
The Shirley Bassey adventure, however, is still rotating. According to Alex, "we wanted a track on the album with someone timeless. So we had a shortlist of three; Lemmy (from Motorhead), Mike D (Beastie Boy and Grand Royal entrepreneur) and Shirley Bassey. We didn't want to have the hippest thing that month or whatever, but someone who would stand the test of time. We wrote a song, sent it off to her management and didn't really expect to get a reply. But she said yes."
The track, History Repeating, is one of big-beat's few concessions to date to the old-fashioned art of song writing. Building layers of Hammond and subtly polished beats before Bassey lets rip with an unsurpassable vocal performance, it has poise and panache in abundance. Anyone who saw the filming of their collaboration on the TV documentary about the singer earlier this year will know that Bassey can be quite a handful. "She was brilliant, very glam, very professional, giving it loads," enthuses Alex. "We had these photos taken afterwards and she's there in her leopardskin catsuit. A real star, just like she is on the telly."
Not that this, or their reworking of On Her Majesty's Secret Service with new-school film score composer John Barry, are their only collaborations. Despite Will's insistence that "we don't want people to think that all we do is collaborate", there are many more mooted, from Mike D (when, of course, he has that long-awaited next Beastie Boys album in the can) to De La Soul and the Jungle Brothers. "We'd like to work with people who really make something out of their voice, like Tom Waits or Iggy Pop." Even their remix clients are quality, credible ones: 808 State, Lucious Jackson, Soul Coughing and Mono.
With friends like that, the Propellerheads are an odd fixture on the big-beat bandwagon alongside the rather juvenile and puerile antics of some of their fellow travellers. "The exciting part of the whole bigbeat thing at the beginning," explains Alex, "was that everyone was going `All right, OK, I've got a Wombles record but it's a laugh'. It was not about being cool, but let's just put on the records we like and have a drink. It's not about the style of music, it's about what you're gonna enjoy at your party. That moment at the beginning was such a joy. I don't necessarily think bigbeat is a bad thing - it's quite an accurate description, it is funky dance music."
Certainly Decksandrums is one of the funkiest records of the year. Stretching between what often sounds like a dozen dance genres, it veers on one extreme from sounding like a night out with the futuristic breakbeat posse to another extreme where you're out in Funky Town in your grooviest Seventies' velvet flares. Alex naturally concurs: "our tunes are very much party tunes, it does seem to connect with happy people rather than people who are trainspotters or anal".
Some of this musical diversity may be down to the background of the two 'Heads. Alex played saxophone for The Stranglers, piano for Van Morrison ("he gave few instructions but once, he barked `No sevenths! Sevenths are an abomination' ") and keyboard for The Grid while Will drummed for a number of indie and dance acts, a talent he inherited from his jazz-playing dad and something which he also brings to the live Propellerheads experience. Indeed, as Alex points out, it's all you need: "Will can drum, I can talk loads of shit, we're a band!"
It's on stage that the Propellerheads really break free of the formulas that are widespread throughout dance music. Instead of banks of DAT machines and consoles, there's a drum-kit, four decks, an organ and a bass. "There's endless potential for things to go wrong but the more that goes wrong, the better we play," Alex laughs. Even their sporadic DJ-ing gigs are as free-style as it is possible to get: Propellerhead tracks rubbing shoulderpads with Motorhead's Ace Of Spades, the Beaties' Fight For Your Right and funky disco breaks. Whatever it is, it's in the mix.
With more and more of Europe succumbing to the Propellerheads vibe, and the United States readying itself (they're represented in the US by Steven Spielberg's Dreamworks corporation, and their New York shows were early sell-outs), the future is looking better and brighter with each passing week. "There's no plot or plan," Alex insists. "We've never found ourselves twiddling our thumbs going `oh, we have no ideas'. It might happen next week though: who knows?
