Despite the underground success of many techno acts and DJs, Oxford is best known for guitar-toting bands rather than dance music. Only The Egg and Mo' Wax main man James Lavelle have made any real impact on the dance scene.

That's all set to change thanks to The Away Team's Lunar Tunes album released on the local Black Plastic label last Monday, writes Templeton Blake.

This is a collection of tracks from The Away Team's previous EPs. Lunar Tunes gives this a taste of just what The Away Team are all about from the hip hop inclined Stompy, through the break beat driven Motown Funk, to the pounding Cafe Del Boy. As well as making their own music, The Away Team, aka Ian Davenport and Andy Lovegrove, are also in demand for their remixing skills. Their mixing credits are, to say the least, impressive. The list includes Elastica, Badly Drawn Boy, EMF, Medal and Shirley Bassey.

More recently The Away Team have finished co-producing and mixing Medal's forthcoming album, Stuntman, as well as working with Parisian outfit Ben's Symphonic Orchestra and working on several tracks for Badly Drawn Boys recent album, Bewilderment. How did these collaborations come about?

"They've all come to us, we wouldn't really know where to start going out blagging," said Ian. "Basically we're not very big networkers." How did you end up working with Shirley Bassey?

"Where Do I Begin is the first track on her History Repeating album. A lot of different people collaborated with her on that. She didn't actually work with anyone. It was all done from the mastertapes." The name, The Away Team, must have some sort of Star Trek connotations. "We're both Trekkies," Ian admitted. "We both like science fiction, especially Star Trek, The Next Generation and Voyager.

"There was always one person in the Away Team who was obviously not one of the main cast usually in a red jumper. If you din't recognise them when they beamed down, chances were they weren't coming back. That was the original series. The Next Generation have a habit of killing off main characters."

Is the title of the album a continuation of the Star Trek theme? "It's more a reflection of space and science fiction in general. It's futuristic, it's what our music is about," said Ian. With that in mind, can we expect a live appearance from The Away Team, or are they going to remain anonymous. "The not playing live thing isn't so much about wanting to remain anonymous, We know what we do well and we're happy sticking to it. What we mean is there are better things we can do with our time, like making more records and being more positive we've got our own agenda," Ian added. Currently, there's a variety of sub-genres in the wide spectrum of dance music. Which one do the The Away Team fit into? "We just make music. Lunar Tunes is dance inclined, but that's not to say the next thing we do won't be country and western, for instance. It's nice to be in a position where we've not painted ourselves in a corner."

It's unlikely that The Away Team will be tempted from their studio to step into the live arena, but stranger things have happened.