Body Snatchers Gonna Crash The Party

The Body Snatchers are a lot of things, but the term 'normal' doesn't fit in anywhere. 'Crunk-loving, future pimps' is closer to the mark, if that's any help to you. 'Robotic prostitute appreciators' could also apply. 'Hyphy resurrectors', possibly that too. Without further ado then, we give you the twisted alter-ego of Baobinga and 30Hz: the awesome Body Snatchers.

The duo are alter-egos of their alter-egos, and they've constructed an elaborate setting, storyline and theme for their debut album, Feeling Good, Looking Right, Smelling Nice, which sets an energetically tongue-in-cheek tone for the duration.

A powerful mix of acid crunk, hip-hop, ghetto-tech, breakbeat, screaming diva soul, searing techno, dirty house, and the lesser-known hyphy genre, Feeling Good... ticks all the right boxes and forces you to readjust your margins for 'categories of music I like'. Nevermind artists bleating on about not being pigeon-holed: create an album like this and categorisation no longer serves as a useful tool for short-hand reference. It's a somewhat unexpected avalanche of fresh ideas from Manchester (Baobinga) and Bristol (30Hz, originally from the USA); both bases are far-removed from the deep south of America, but the Body Snatchers have captured the sound and run with it straight into the next galaxy.

Where did the idea for crunked-up brothers called The Body Snatchers and their futuristic 'ho' adventures come from? "Well, first of all, the adventures are not entirely 'ho' related; jewels and money also feature heavily," they reply. "And we didn't so much 'become' Body Snatchers as The Body Snatchers 'became' us - we are merely receptacles for the crunk, which uses us as it will. If the theme is recognisable it is merely because we all have the crunk within us; when people see our hustle, in a sense they are merely seeing their own hustle reflected and magnified."

Part of their style can be summarised as hyphy, the lesser-known genre originating from the San Francisco Bay Area and representing a merging of hip-hop and dance, akin to high-energy crunk. I Like What I See, Monster Ka$h, and Freaky Ho exemplify this curious but highly satisfying mix of hip-hop and pounding beats.

And what to make of these cries of a re-emergence of hyphy on Feeling Good... - you've been billed as the future of hip-hop - were there any deliberate or accidental factors at work? "We deliberately set out to create an audio-visual representation of intergalactic pimpin' - but we accidentally made it good. As for the future of hip-hop, I think that without exaggeration or false modesty I can confirm that this is 100% the case - Timbaland been calling for peace talks, but we takin' over. And hyphy is too good a word not to be used at least a couple of times a day, so if we're bringing it to attention, only good can come from it."

Besides the press and other parties who have heard the release, what support and love have you been shown so far, and has anybody dared to player hate? "We get love worldwide, particularly in the major territories like Lichtenstein, Andorra and the Comorros Islands. Timbaland tried to hate but I think anyone can see his career is weak, and getting weaker." Does the Body Snatchers outfit give you both free reign to explore other musical territories you might not have explored separately? "Yes - namely Lichtenstein, Andorra and the Comorros Islands."

Behind the music lies a futuristic space story which, although not explicitly referred to through lyrical content on the album, is used to tie together song themes into one complete adventure. Starting on the planet Alpha Crunkturi, it follows a hazardous situation similar to our own current oil supply - the crunk is running dry on the planet; pimped out cars are missing their low-rider bucket seats; parties become less frequent; jewellery loses its bling. The Body Snatchers jet off in their Space Whip vehicle in search of "bass, beats and booty," to find the essence of crunk and restore their homeland, entailing adventures with robot hos and other alien figures.

Behind the space-age story there is clearly the idea of rescuing crunk and lifting it out of any doldrums - how far does Feeling Good... go towards doing this? Was that even the intention? "Dance music has become a hollow shell of hype for homogenous hwankers [sic]. But crunk has failed to evolve and grow sonically, so our evil genius was to take the sonic madness from the electronic world and match it to the swagger and general kablaow [sic] of the Durty South and get something that redefines big pimpin' as the result. The space age story and cartoons are mostly intended for spreading the message of pimping and objectifying women to pre-schoolers."

One of the artists guesting their vocals for the album is Sporty-O, the soon to be favoured southern-drawling rapper. Sporty-O is especially fantastic bantering with Mr Smith on opener Monster Ka$h, which features the threat that 'I'll get presidential on your ass' and 'Barack your Obama' from Mr Smith. How did they select the many artists you worked with for Body Snatchers? "We mostly keep our crowns, sceptres and gold teeth in Bristol, which is where Sirplus, Kamikaze, Yolanda and Frilla are based. 30Hz has roots deep in the Bristol hip-hop scene and knew a lot of those heads from way back when, and when they heard the kind of 'swangulatin' beats we were coming up with, the vibes started to flow. The label has good links with DJ Lethal in L.A., and he was working with Sporty-O, who in turn hooked us up with Goldmouf, and Mr Smith was a friend of someone that another act on the label had worked with. We were definitely very keen to work with southern MCs - as you say, the drawl is unbeatable, and it's worked out well cos Sporty has been picked up by Lil Jon for his label, and Goldmouf is doing a film in Atlanta... All very fortuitous, clearly the Gods of Crunk are smiling on us.

"We're both massive hip-hop fans, so obviously the chance to work with vocalists was very exciting: writing beats for someone to vocal, and then reworking them around the vocal is a totally different challenge to making a club-banging instrumental track. You have to leave a lot out to allow room for the vocal, but at the same time your hooks have to be that much stronger to carry the track - it's an interesting balancing act.

"With Call Me, we originally wrote the backing track as a weird kind of acid-house tribute, and Sporty originally did that rap for a different beat. But the beat he was originally flowing over was pretty heavy and thugged out, and the rap is quite upbeat and party-vibes, so we weren't sure they fitted together so well. More for a laugh than anything, we put his vocal over the Call Me beat and suddenly we had this crazy hip-house, slightly mad, almost kitsch kind of vibe which worked much better than either of the original plans we had. The chorus came about in a similarly random way - we had Yolanda in for a session on a completely different track - played her Call Me (which originally had a terrible vocoder chorus) and she came up with the melody and first line for the chorus, recorded it there and then, and suddenly we realised we had a single on our hands."

How were the Body Snatchers formed, and what sort of vision was behind it? "We started writing together ages ago, doing tunes like Jack Your Body and Know Ya for various breakbeat labels. Once we realised that the stuff we were coming out with was actually pretty good, we had a moment of clarity where we decided that we didn't have to just bosh out dancefloor singles, we could actually work on an album, which gave us more of a goal to aim for. Then later on we had another moment of clarity, probably when we really sat and listened to Drop It Like It's Hot and Mr Me Too (both Neptunes productions): we realised that we could look way beyond dance music, as hip-hop had got more interesting sonically and had a much wider remit."

To round up this up, let's take a quick look at the album in full - any other genres you want to add to that list? You've got yourselves quite a hefty mash-up... (If you're expecting a straight-laced answer to follow here then you clearly haven't been reading the rest of the article): "Bangers and mash. Onions and gravy. Fish and chips." Thank you gentlemen, our desire for entertaining and fantastical dialogue has been fully sated, and we salute Alpha Crunkturi!