Thanks to the many advertisements and soundtracks using the title track of their 1992 opus Connected, it's hard to believe it's been nine years since we last heard from England's Stereo MC's.

With the follow-up, Deep Down & Dirty, finally coming out June 12, one can't help but wonder what took so long.

"We've done about 100 interviews, and that was the first question on everybody's lips," said Stereo MC Nick "The Head" Hallam. "All we can say is we kinda lost the plot a bit and had living issues we had to deal with."

Though they haven't put out a new full-length since 1992, Hallam and partner Rob Birch did throw their fans a bone with last year's DJ Kicks mix disc, which featured three new songs.

Interrogations as to their musical whereabouts over the years notwithstanding, Stereo MC's are just happy to be here.

"It's great that we're still making music. We feel totally as fresh about it as we ever did." Hallam said. "Music's become a bit of a formula, really. It's good to do the unexpected. I can say if we'd carried on, we'd probably have stopped doing it by now. You can get a bit tired of the routine of it."

Deep Down & Dirty's first single, the title track, has garnered favorable reviews and is getting decent airplay back home in England, according to Hallam.

"It's an important time for that track," Birch said. "Then again, they're all important 'cause they all play a part in the picture."

On the performance end of things, Stereo MC's always received high marks for breaking the otherwise hackneyed dance-show mold — so much that they caught the attention of U2, who brought them along for a European tour.

"We've always been different," Hallam said. "You look at the stuff that's happening in dance these days and there's very few people that are actually groups. It's either two guys noodling away on a couple of keyboards with some big back projection or it's somebody just playing some records. I think we go a bit deeper than that."

U.S. fans will see how deep when Stereo MC's bring their show to the States this summer. Birch and Hallam — along with drummer Owen If (born Owen Rossiter) and singer Cath Coffey — will play New York's Bowery Ballroom on June 12. The group has plans to do a sweep of the States following the New York show, but the band's label could not confirm further dates.