After scoring an underground hit with its 1998 album, "Super Mercado," the hip-hop-meets-frolickin'-rock band 2 Skinnee J's are set to return with a new LP, titled "Volumizer," on September 12.

For "Volumizer," the J's second major-label record, the band enlisted the aid of uber-producer Mickey Petralia, who had just come off of 18 months of session work for Beck's multicolored and poly-rhythmic "Midnite Vultures" LP.

The 2 Skinnee J's recorded the bulk of "Volumizer" at Mickey P's home recording studio in Los Feliz, California and brought in a cast of friends and associates to help out on several tracks, including Incubus drummer Jose Pasillas II and DJ Swamp from Beck's backing band.

"It was exciting to work with Mickey," explained J's bassist Eddie Eyeball, "because he basically

has one hand in the

past, where he's got all these cool analog synths and toys to play with that make crazy sounds. But he's also got one hand in the right-now, where he's using ProTools, and he's incredibly fluent at it.

He's also very unorthodox," he added."Usually, you have a very systematic approach to [making] a record. You lay down the drums, then the bass, then you come in with your guitars and keyboards, and then you do the vocals and overdubs and stuff. Usually, most producers follow that path, but he would work at that day on whatever inspired him. If he really wanted to do the keyboards that day, even though there was no drums or bass in that section, he would just do it.

That's a really great way to work, I think, because whatever you're passionate about shows when you record it. I think his unorthodox way of working jibed really well with how we like to record and get things across on

tape, so it

worked fine." [RealAudio]

After working together on "Midnite Vultures," Mickey P asked DJ Swamp to come to the studio and unleash his turntable skills on several "Volumizer" tracks, including "Big Beat Evangelist," "Horns Of Destruction," and "Pass The Buck.

"Basically, Mickey P had DJ Swamp come in and just do whatever he wanted on every song," Stevie Spice said.

"[He had] complete freedom to do whatever he wanted," Eyeball added. "And DJ Swamp, I'm not sure how well-known he is outside of DJ circles, but his setup is like low-tech and high-tech combined at the same time with a lot of creativity.

He's got his turntables, but he also goes through pedals that maybe some guitar

players or bassists would go through.

He's really creative with how he scratches and the sounds that he gets. He almost doesn't sound like a DJ anymore -- basically it's another instrument.

A turntablist," [RealAudio] Spice noted.

Yeah, a turntablist," Eyeball agreed, "and he's phenomenal at it. He really is. He added so much to some of those tracks.

The 2 Skinnee J's first single from "Volumizer" will be the track "Stockholm Love," a song about the love-hate psychiatric condition known as Stockholm syndrome.