New Jaxx album 'was hardest yet'

Basement Jaxx have admitted that their forthcoming fifth album was the biggest challenge of their career.

In an interview with the Liverpool Daily Post, bandmember Simon Ratcliffe revealed that he and Felix Buxton struggled to create the right mix of tracks in the project's early stages.

"This is Basement Jaxx 2009. Like all our albums, it's not really one thing. It's all different kinds of tempos and moods," he explained.

"It was probably the hardest album we have done. The mood of the album is a bit more melancholy than our previous stuff, but then in the last six months we pulled it back round and started doing stuff that had a bit more energy to it."

The new LP, titled Scars, also sees a large number of guest artists, including Sam Sparro, Kelis, Santigold and Chipmunk.

Ratcliffe insisted: "It wasn't by design, that's just how it all fell together."

Scars will be released next month.