Interview: Deekline and Wizard talk new album Back Up, Coming Through

Are the booty breaks pioneers launching their own TV show? And did Yolanda really eat a microphone during the recording sessions? The answer to both questions is "no". The answer to the poser: is this the best breakbeat album yet? It's a definite maybe

• Click here to download a sample minimix from the new album.

On paper, Deekline and Wizard seem like the ultimate odd couple: Nick Annand (Deekline) is the gentle giant behind the jaunty 2000 breakbeat garage top 10 hit I Don't Smoke, featuring a sample of Jim Davidson pretending to be a rastafarian, while Wizard is the svelte studio genius who has polished beats for the likes of Chemical Brothers, MIA and Lady Sovereign.

Yet together these two virtually invented the booty breaks style which is becoming the most prominent style in breakbeat right now. The Stanton Warriors are all over it, Beat Assassins are coming up fast in the outside lane, and now Deekline and Wizard have produced what at first glance looks like the ultimate booty compendium in the shape of new LP Back Up, Coming Through.

They also share a sense of humour and a taste for the absurd. During our interview I was informed, deadpan, that their future plans involved starting their own TV show (the mind boggles), and that vocalist Yolanda, the beautiful singer whose sublime, sultry voice graces nine out of the album's 13 tracks, ate a microphone during one particular recording session.

If this schoolboy brand of humour is not so shocking, it comes as more of a surprise that Coming Through is not really a booty breaks album at all. There's also the melodic, ravey electro breaks of title track Back Up (Love For the Music), which comes on like a long lost hybrid of early 80s electric boogaloo and slightly later, soulful Detroit techno. Then there's the horn-led funk groove of Fire, featuring Hammond organ, whirlitzer, flute, sax and live drums, and the epic, string-led Angels. This is no more a booty breaks album than Outkast's Speaker Boxx/The Love Below is a hip-hop LP, or Radiohead's OK, Computer is an indie CD.

Talking to the duo in their London studio, a few days before they head off for gigs in Chicago, Reno and Miami, before returning to Europe for Snowbombing in Austria, it's clear that there has been a concerted effort to transcend the style they pioneered, while still giving their fans that trademark Deekline and Wizard bounce.

"We wanted it to be a lot more adult and more mature compared to Breaks, Beats and Blondes," says Greg. "A lot of the tracks have more of a song structure to them, the idea being that that would help them to not date as quickly as a full-on dance track would.

"I'm very much into the concept of the album. You need to think about them differently: you need some variation on there in terms of tempos and styles and it's really important to get the track order right. As a producer it's the best thing you can get involved in: you can throw in all those different influences that you might not be able to use in a club track."

Vocals are very much to the fore on Coming Through, which features not a single instrumental track. Nick is happy to take some of the credit for pioneering the vocal breakbeat style, but has no problem with those who followed after.

"When we came into breakbeat, people were not using vocals so much, even on the bigger tracks," he agrees. "It was more of a cliquey kind of scene. I like what the Beat Assassins and the Stantons do. A strong vocal makes for a much better party track and gives the music more identity."

Two of the standout tunes - and two which do follow a booty vibe - are One in the Front and Keep it Pushing, both of which feature Detroit ghetto tech pioneer DJ Assault on vocals. "I met him at a club and just thought it would be great to get him involved on a track," says Nick.

Yolanda has been a staple of the D&W sound for several years now, and the album is a real showcase for her talents. Shunda K from Florida's super-hot Yo! Majesty got involved on Show Me What You Do because Nick was doing some production with them, while the pair tapped up MC Navigator, who throws down his ragga stylings on Dancehall Thrilla, because they loved his work with the Freestylers.

While it's very much their own brand, the new album maintains the breaks blueprint at a time when many others have slipped off the radar into house music or techno. Why so?

"It's a very versatile style," says Greg. "With a breaks track you can have anything from the tearout style to something very song-based. You can throw a lot of different things in provided you keep to that beat and that bpm. As a producer it's quite a fun genre to work within. Also, it's not all that easy to make a good breaks track. I've worked on house and drum 'n' bass projects, and you can get away with a track which is basically just a beat. Breaks is much more of a challenge."

Coming Through took four years from start to finish, although the pair worked on a variety of other projects in between. There were originally 25 tracks, but these were whittled down to a pert 12 (13 with a hidden bonus track). Both Greg and Nick hope the next album won't take them so long to perfect, but there's a sense of satisfaction that they have created a work of real class.

The LP really shows what its possible to do within the breakbeat pigeonhole, and ought to catapult Deekline & Wizard into the highest echelons of the style, alongside the likes of the Stantons and Krafty Kuts. If it doesn't, well there's always that TV show to fall back on.