We first spoke with up-and-coming UK electro-hop duo Dan Le Sac and Scroobius Pip back in August prior to the US release of their debut, Angles, and the conversation- as well as the album- was impressive enough to get us off our asses and down to the Echo in Los Angeles for their show last Wednesday, near the end of their extensive US club tour.

Only in Los Angeles will you find iPod-wearing Mexican leprechaun ex-con tweakers crashing the party (and the interview) to ask for 30 cents to make a phone call. But that’s the real thread of beauty in this shitty little town- anything can, and usually does, happen.

The Streets, aka Mike Skinner, exploded onto the music scene in 2002 like a breath of fresh breath of Brit-tinted poetic air. His debut, Original Pirate Material, was quick, tight and mean. There was renegade potential there, and the beats and rhymes displayed an inventiveness and genre-skipping versatility that caught a lot of attention and raised a lot of hopes. His follow-up, A Grand Don’t Come For Free, was an exercise in lyrical sharpening, but the beats took a slight downturn. Nevertheless, the album sounded ambitious, and the fucker went triple platinum. I was excited to see what would come next.

Move ahead two years to 2006, when a drug-addled Skinner issued a big “fuck you” to both his fans and his legitimacy as an artist by way of The Hardest Way To Make An Easy Living. There were no beat breakthroughs, no rhythm- just a guy self-absorbed enough to think other people want to hear about his lonely, cracked out life. It was… what do they call it over there? Rubbish. And guess what? Nobody bought it.

Naturally, Act III in any addicted artist’s portfolio is the sober revival, the rejuvenation, the reawakening. Everything Is Borrowed is supposed to be Skinner’s big comeback, but what’s supposed to pass for genre-transcending genius comes across only as the testament of a newly sober addict, trying to tell everyone that life is suddenly worth living. It’s the midlife crisis of the stars- ask Scott Weiland, he’s been on this ride for about a decade now.

Has there ever been a hit song in the states by hip-hop artist with a strong British accent? Not that I can think of. But if there was ever a contender, it’s Thou Shalt Always Kill, from a duo operating as Dan Le Sac Vs. Scroobius Pip.

After using the wrong country code and losing a furious half-hour screaming match with an international operator, I got a hold of MC Scroobius Pip to discuss the impact of Thou Shalt Not Kill, trying out (sort of) for Simon Cowell’s X-Factor TV show and why pop music killed the record industry.

My temper was grated and I was in no mood to cover the standard “So how did you guys meet?” bullshit that has nothing to do with music, so we cut to the meat of things rather quickly, and it wasn’t until after I’d hung up that I realized I hadn’t asked him a single question about the album he’s promoting. Keep an eye out for a review of Angles in the next week or so- it’s great, and you need to hear more about it.