Chemical Brothers s/d

Search:Most of Surrender (excluding annoying Johnathan Donohue collaboration, Most of Exit Planet Dust. The Beth Orton song on Dig Your Own Hole.

Destroy:About half of Dig Your Own Hole which I used to like but sounds pretty dated now.

_Exit Planet Dust_ is a good album, but _Dig Your Own Hole_ is fantastic. Anything with "Block Rockin' Beats", "Electrobank", "It Doesn't Matter", "Setting Sun", "Where Do I Begin?", and "The Private Psychedelic Reel" on it is a must. _Come With Us_ certainly seems like a return to form; "Star Guitar" is the best single they've released since "Hey Boy Hey Girl".

Destroy - It began in Afrika , Not Another Drugstore , My Mercury Mouth , Her Jazz.

beautiful.

DESTROY EVERYTHING ELSE.

Otherwise, search:

"Block Rockin' Beats" as performed live; "Life Is Sweet"; "One Too Many Mornings"; "Alive, Alone"; "Orange Wedge"; "Hey Boy, Hey Girl"; "Got Glint?"; all of Dig Your Own Hole.

I must hear this song, clearly.

Destroy: Block Rockin Beats

I'd have to say that the reason that most people don't really like the new stuff is that since DYOH and maybe before, people have been expecting "Big Beat" but the chems have been steadily doing more.. dare I say trancey stuff. I couldn't really care less. They've usually had around one song on each album that I wasn't too interested in, with the exception of "Exit". on DYOH it was Block Rockin, On Surrender it was Orange Wedge. Realistically The Chems aren't very US dancefloor. But they are inspiring. to cut the babbling I think that thier remix work is often some of thier best.

They could have ended up like Fatboy Slim. It makes me cry to listen to "Halfway between the blah blah blah" knowing that "Better Living Through Chemistry" was so good. I thought anyway. Halfway between was so overproduced and fiddly. It sounded like he was trying to cram in as many hooks as humanly possible into songs liks "Ya Mama". And it just didn't work.

But I _wanted_ an album full of stuff like "Hey Boy Hey Girl"! I thought that was their new direction and, when I heard nonsense like "Music: Response" and "Let Forever Be" coming out of my speakers when I played the album, I got deeply annoyed.

Destroy: Afrika, obviously. You can see what they're trying to do - house music has been itching for a Kings Of The Wild Frontier influence for a while now - but it doesn't quite come off. <gervais>Shame.</gervais>

This just in:

Following their fifth consecutive number 1 album last year, the Grammy award winning ‘We Are The Night’, The Chemical Brothers return with ‘Brotherhood’ a best of collection with a kick and a twist, set for release on 1st September 2008.

In a career that to date has spanned 13 years and accrued 9 million record sales Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons have established themselves as true pioneers of electronic music and as The Chemical Brothers they have become one of the most popular dance acts of all time. Now seems the perfect time to take stock of their seminal output with the double disc celebration that is Brotherhood.

Brotherhood comprises of 2 discs, the first is a collection of 14 undeniable benchmark Singles from the bands immense back catalogue and new track ‘Keep My Composure’ which features the shimmering flow of Baltimore’s Spank Rock.

The 2nd will feature exclusively Electronic Battle Weapons 1-10. Since 1996 Electronic Battle Weapons have acted as the laboratories for The Chems devious musical experiments and laid the rhythmic and melodic foundations for numerous tracks as well as providing some of the duos most formidable mixes. Until now Electronic Battle Weapons1-9 have only been available on various limited formats and this is the first time they have been widely available.

Brotherhood will be preceded by the digital download single Midnight Madness. Derived and developed from Electronic Battle Weapons 10 Midnight Madness is The Chemical Brothers at there most infectious, euphoric, report to the dancefloor best.

Midnight Madness is released on the 18th August.
Brotherhood is released on 1st September both on Freestyle Dust/Virgin Records

TRACKLISTING

DISC 1

1. Galvanize
2. Hey Boy Hey Girl
3. Block Rockin’ Beats
4. Do It Again
5. Believe
6. Star Guitar
7. Let Forever Be
8. Leave Home
9. Keep My Composure
10. Saturate
11. Out Of Control
12. Midnight Madness
13. The Golden Path
14. Setting Sun
15. Chemical Beats

DISC 2
1-10 Electronic Battle Weapons

compare with the last best-of, which came out in 2004:

1. Song To The Siren
2. Chemical Beats
3. Leave Home
4. Setting Sun
5. Block Rockin' Beats
6. Private Psychedelic Reel
7. Hey Boy Hey Girl
8. Let Forever Be
9. Out Of Control
10. Star Guitar
11. Test
12. Get Yourself High - Chemical Brothers & K-Os
13. Golden Path - Chemical Brothers & The Flaming Lips

EBWs
It Doesn't Matter
Don't Stop The Rock
Under The Influence
Freak Of The Week
It Began In Afrika
Hoops
Galvanize
Saturate
ebw9 = ?
ebw10 = ?

According to the press release, ebw10 = Midnight Madness.

#7 was Acid Children, not Gavanise

press release sez Midnight Madness is not #10 but is based on it

(and EBW6 was a remix after the fact, not a trial early version like most of the others)

i heard EBW6 way before Hoops. got info re 7 from discogs tho.

"shimmering flow of Baltimore’s Spank Rock."

Shimmering?

babbling brook more like

.

other than the limited teaser extra cd, i just dont see who this is aimed at.
surely, any casual fans already have the current 'best of' collection, especially seeing as the cd is stocked at bargain basement prices.
truly baffling.

yeah, in Australia the current in-print version is the best-of, the bonus disc from the first release, AND the DVD best-of, all in a three-part gatefold DVD-sized box... in a slipcase... for under twenty bucks.

end of contract I guess?

are the EBWs diff't versions of these tracks??

they tended to be dancier mixes of what you'd later hear on the albums

new single was on C4 last night. it's pretty dire imo - sounds like what some euro trance-lite dude would come up with.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=xcHF_RhSW-0

i think ebw 10 is the best song of the year so far... it's so incredibly happy.

midnight midnight MIDNIGHT

I don't have the second disk but the Spank Rock track rules.

'come with us' is a pretty dope album imo

i even like this corny ass shit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDe6MZQjpho

should we do an "electronic battle weapons" poll???

we should!

Needs YouTube links, I keep forgetting which is which.

deej OTM

Surprised there was no bump for Further (one of their best IMO)

Anyone heard the soundtrack they did for "Hanna"?

I've only heard pieces of it but so far it seems to be way better than the stuff Daft Punk churned out for "Tron Legacy"...

Chemical Brothers - Further (June 2010)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwZOid42f2g

Olympic velodrome theme:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/jul/17/london-2012-chemical-brothers

I approve of this musics

wow:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BC2dRkm8ATU

had a hard time watching that

pretty cool though

theyre back

its like 1999 all over again

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTBNONSR9F8

theyre back

a long, fallow two months since their last video :D

its like 1999 all over again

otm though, but feels like it fades out halfway through

and another, probably my favorite of the three. once again the video is fantastic

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rSYwtllbweY

everything I've heard from this sounds like it could've slotted in between Surrender and Come With Us. Even the cover art looks like a real throwback to their early days

I’m a fan of pretty much the entire Chems career arc, up to and including Born In The Echoes, but I find it hard to argue that these new tracks aren’t a step up compared to their recent work & that the album in April probably will be as well
(The live version of “Free Yourself” is better tho)

Also fun fact the No Geography cover is lifted wholesale from the insert art of the first Godley & Creme album (which in all likelihood won’t keep it from being one of my favorites of 2019 come the end of the year):
https://www.discogs.com/release/871182-Consequences/images

Chems good up to Dig Your Own Hole. Couple of singles replicated and slightly altered their formula with decent results, but if they had only made their first two albums and then quit, they'd be considered just as good.

admittedly Dig holds up a lot better than I thought it would. but I still think they made the right choice going where they did - the fact that their new singles are racking up millions of views is pretty impressive. personally I'm with Champ, I kinda like everything they've ever done to some degree, even the clunkier albums like We Are the Night or Born in the Echoes are pretty fun. In my mind Further is their best album but I'm guessing that one didn't sell quite like their others.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRfSM-lv55I

this is probably one of the best music videos I've ever seen

It's not even one of the best chemical brothers videos! Got to Keep on is better, could stand to be even weirder. Neither are a patch on Star Guitar or Let Forever Be. As for the songs, zzzzz.

sorry I'm a sucker for dog-centric videos

I will admit to tearing up a bit at the part where they’re sending the dog into space as his handler proudly watches, even though I hadn’t really been paying attention to the screen up to that point. Guess that’s the hallmark of a good video? Maybe?
As for the song, I can kind of imagine it being demoted to the “cameos from the slower, more breakbeat-y parts of our discography” segue in their live sets by the next tour cycle, if it even makes it that far, but the soul sample is well-selected and well-incorporated and the Aurora vocals are excellent (which bodes well since she’s supposed to be on a fair amount of this album).

Besides all arguments about video accompaniments to Chems music have been moot since around 2007 when the Smith + Lyall live visuals became the definitive pairing for whatever they were putting out

interesting that nearly all the singles released are from the second half of the album

Some version of the opener, “Eve Of Destruction”, has been done for awhile, as evidenced by its presence as a vocal snippet (complete with visuals) in the setlist last summer w/ all the No Geography tracks that have come out by now, plus this recording from a DJ set a bit before the tour started:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/110uhJIYNjsTSLqb8tOp1SzfL3C2V6o3x/view

So yeah, it seems weird to me that we’ve gotten a track that wasn’t previewed at all (apart from a short cameo in a bbc mix) before “Eve Of Destruction”. Maybe it’s gonna be their “big single” (heavy airquotes for a Chemical Brothers song coming out in 2019) to coincide with the album rollout?

Played "Got To Keep On" at a party last weekend, it went down a storm!

just put on Don't Think, their live CD/DVD from the Further era. I'd forgotten how good this was - like Everything, Everything or Alive 2007, it's basically a continuous mix of their best stuff. I didn't really see it get much fanfare but it's incredible.

The concert film is especially a treat - not that 2007 Daft Punk or 1999 Underworld didn’t have brilliant live visuals, but Adam Smith just ties everything good about what a Chemical Brothers show meant by 2011, both in terms of their music and his visual accompaniment, into such a neat little package, with the focus on the audience being a satisfying extra twist on the format.
The only thing that lets it down for me is that it comes from a festival gig, and therefore doesn’t have one of the best encores they’ve ever assembled on top of the already-strong setlist:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q604uTA9vPI

Alright so the record’s out and I’m impressed by it, albeit in kind of a different way that I was expecting. It’s a very emotive album - really gives off the sense, more than usual, that Tom Rowlands is FEELING EMOTIONS and using the venue of The Chemical Brothers to express them. The sequencing is a pleasantly headlong rush. The Aurora tracks are pretty uniformly the highlights of the stuff that didn’t come out beforehand, tho the title track is also very strong.

Album is surprisingly fun. It's like the uptempo parts of 'Since I Left You' crossed with Orbital's Wonky'.

And yeah I'm hearing "Got To Keep On" at basically every party/club I go to, which maybe says something about those parties/clubs.

That you’ve got good taste in parties? ;)

just put on Don't Think, their live CD/DVD from the Further era

Thanks for the heads up. Had no idea this existed and it made my commute home in the Easter traffic last night much more enjoyable.

The final third or so certainly bangs.

after the first listen...yeah, this is much better than Born in the Echoes. this would've made a great follow-up to Surrender.

This surprised me with how much I liked it.

Album is surprisingly fun. It's like the uptempo parts of 'Since I Left You' crossed with Orbital's Wonky'.

yeah! I hear the same vibes of both Avalanches albums actually. And it's a lot like Wonky in that it compacts the classic sound into a modern era and also functions as a showcase of their talents.

Played it 3 times today. haven't done that with a new album in forever. I'll see how I feel about it in a year but for now I think it's up there with Dig and Further. It's so much fun and feels like an album they actually wanted to make (which I haven't gotten from some CB albums). I remember getting Surrender on release day and waiting until when my parents weren't home so I could crank it loud in the living room. today I did the same in my own place, with my kids (they really like the "I ain't gonna take it no more" bit)

They've been on a roll lately

I love the part of 'Eve of Destruction' where it changes up from late 80's house-stab vibes to that almost Maximum Joy esque live bass and female vocal combination. This is way better than I has expected, I was a huge fan of the first 2 albums and stopped paying attention when I got into more specialised stuff.

Shazam'd a track the other day and it was, surprisingly, 2015's Go. A great sounding track that.

Chemical Brothers winning Glastonbury at the moment

They are playing in my neighborhood in august but I'll be out of town. Sort of curious how much of their show is playing the old hits vs more recent material

xxp "Go" is so good, agree that they seem to be on a roll

Sort of curious how much of their show is playing the old hits vs more recent material

Full current setlist here, non-spoilery summation if you care about that sort of thing:
If your cutoff for “the old hits” is at or around the end of the Surrender era, they don’t fall back on those past glories too hard - there’s a large and varied array of material from all the subsequent albums, with an obvious emphasis on whatever they’re touring to promote - but unless you’re a diehard for “Setting Sun”, which got dropped again after an early-2010s revival, pretty much anything you’d care to hear from their moment of peak 90’s visibility is represented, along with some deep cuts for the diehards (esp. if you go to a show where there’s enough time for an encore).

imo their adamance for keeping at least a few songs from every album in heavy setlist rotation has done wonders for their rep as an act whose discography you can’t just tune out of at some decided-on cutoff point - especially as their live shows are probably the most front-facing part of the whole Chemical Brothers operation at this stage. Like, even if you want to argue that - say - Push The Button is a career low, it’s still where beloved setlist staple “Surface To Air” came from (plus “Galvanize” etc.), and there isn’t an album of theirs that doesn’t have at least one (or probably several) of those moments.

Got To Keep On is in my head every day now, it's one of the best things they've ever done

They are playing in my neighborhood in august but I'll be out of town. Sort of curious how much of their show is playing the old hits vs more recent material

Loved the segue from that into Hey Boy Hey Girl on Saturday xp

oh my god that setlist looks insane

would really love to see these guys one day but I live in the Midwest so uhhh

I actually gave up on the Glastonbury show and went to see Hot Chip instead - it felt like watching a film I'd seen a few too many times before and I couldn't get close enough for it to feel fully immersive.

The cover star as such of Surrender has passed on (article from a couple of years ago but an updated section at the end has more details).

https://medium.com/@JPRobinson/the-mystery-of-jesus-the-naked-hippie-dancer-9822c0da8765

that was great, thanks

Yeah Gary Kemp shared out the news and a lot of the replies have been great in terms of sharing stories -- including one from Chris Difford!

Just heard that ‘Jesus’ William Jellett died today. He was at every gig I ever went to in the 70s, doing his groovy dancing and blessing us all with his happy presence. We’d call his name from the bleachers. He was validation that the artist was worth seeing. #Jesus 🙏 pic.twitter.com/bxvyM83NlW

— Gary Kemp (@garyjkemp) January 10, 2021

Used to see him shaking his maracas everywhere back in the 80s/90s, last gig I saw him at was a Hawkwind tribute band in about 2003 (I was depping the audio generators in the support band is my excuse for being there). He wasn't looking great even then, but sad to see him gone all the same. No idea about his views on stadium techno, I think he preferred Blue Öyster Cult.

New track out today, just in time for the summer, hopefully a harbinger of better times. I can’t find any information about the vocalist, sounds a bit like Sarah Nixey.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-mGA4V2LK0

I was 13 and hooked when Surrender came out. I used to watch a bunch of MTV during certain times trying to catch the "Let Forever Be" video. (well, that and "Body Movin" by Beastie Boys) I saw it twice and thought it was really freaky. Never occurred to me that I could just YouTube it now, lol

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5FyfQDO5g0

it's a lucid dream, right? still one of the most hypnotic videos I have ever seen. who's the actress??

the girl is played by actress and dancer Stephanie Landwehr

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Forever_Be

great tune

when I saw it at first I was convinced it was someone famous who I figured I would've forgot about now. she's such a great casting for it, all the smooth but imperfect movements

my first real dose of online culture came from following like, the "techno" email groups around its release. when "Hey Boy Hey Girl" came out the fans fucking hated it. but I thought it was funny! like the Chems doing "Cotton Eyed Joe"! I admit it might not have been the best choice for the first single though

Gondry, man. Genius.

I thought "Hey Boy, Hey Girl" was a great opening salvo for Surrender. If you listen to all the tracks that were originally released as "Electronic Battle Weapons" (e.g. "It Doesn't Matter", "Under the Influence") - at least through to about 2002 - it presents this alternate history of the group as this slamming bleepy house act, which seemed much more in-tune with the turn of the millennium than rock-aligned big beat. "Hey Boy Hey Girl" (though not an EBW track) leaned into that vibe in the most populist manner possible. If anything, I found "Let Forever Be" to be a disappointing retrenchment (as a song - the video clip is great) - "Setting Sun" redux but lesser in every way possible.

ooh that's harsh, I like it more than that but I do respect yr take

it's the on with "Go" and "Horse Power" that I really love as far as post-90s work

"It Doesn't Matter" = maybe my fave track of theirs ever

has there ever been an artist poll?

on one

another related memory is that when the college station that I have DJd on since 1998 first got their license in '93 or '94, we would listen to the station back then at the bakery I worked at (I did radio then, but on a different station) and they played "Setting Sun" like 10 times a day

I actually do like "Let Forever Be". I think it wouldn't have been so much of an issue if they hadn't opted to work with Noel again.

Arguably the "working with male rock singers" gambit was almost a straight line of diminishing returns: "Life Is Sweet" = "Setting Sun" > "Let Forever Be" > "The Acid Test" > "The Golden Path".

If you played those in succession there would be a clear encroaching vibe I would compare to regulatory capture: the CBs gradually forgetting that the point was to take the rock-association and forge something new with it, rather than just come up with an arrangement that would complement the peccadillos of the guest vocalist.

otm imo

One thing about Let Forever Be is it does not buzzsaw through your skull the way Setting Sun does. It’s also a way more overt Tomorrow Never Knows rip

The line “how does it feel like?” bothers the shit out of me though

Fwiw I really like “The Acid Test”. “Golden Path” sucks though.

you mean The Test, right? or is there another track called The Acid Test?

ok so I never actually bought a copy of Come With Us, I downloaded it way back when MP3s were always mistagged so I assumed that was just the actual name of the song

Yeah I just mean "The Test" - when I think of the song all I can hear in my head is Richard Ashcroft asking "did I pass the acid test?", and it's up there with "how does it feel like?" as one of the more annoying questions asked in modern music.

otm, I like The Test apart from that so if is a bummer

all the lyrics in that song are annoying but the pure beauty of the "are you feeling me like I'm feeling you" part makes up for it

interesting to compare all these to Out of Control which seems to be the opposite, the boys just enjoying themselves

You know what other song sounds like the boys just enjoying themselves, is "The Salmon Dance"

lol

The Salmon Dance sounds like the boys trying to write Gorillaz song. Possibly even a Plastic Beach song, 3 years before that album even came out.

Salmon Dance is fun I just wish the album it was on was better

That album is good, though. “We Are The Night” and “Battle Scars” are fantastic and I am not part of the posse that dislikes “The Salmon Dance”

Not as good as their last one but new album is still pretty good. Wasn't sure about some of the singles but they work really well in the context of the album.

This is about more than just the Chemical Brothers but I didn't know which thread would be best

https://musictech.com/news/industry/the-chemical-brothers-touring-us-not-viable/

I noticed Geoff Barrow (the Portishead guy) say this on social media:

I can’t stand the chemical brothers never have
Awful music for dullards

Cool guy!

only single I've heard is "Live Again" which has one of the coolest guitar sounds I've ever heard

wanna grab it on vinyl but man it's so expensive

Geoff being a silly billy yet again

Not as good as their last one but new album is still pretty good.

Yeah, it didn't grab me right away like the last one did, and it seems to have fallen into a crack in the earth as far as press coverage. I'll give it another listen this week, though.

It's a good album but... maybe my least favourite. Too early to tell.

the-chemical-brothers-touring-us-not-viable/

huge thanks to Tom & Ed for playing Seattle in between the two weekends of Coachella this year

Not that surprising. It's not like they're jusrlt taking a drumkit and some guitars and synths with them. Their current live set up includes two 30ft tall robots that shoot lasers from their eyes ffs

The other pre-album singles did nothing for me but Live Again might be my favourite thing I've ever heard them do

Listening to the new one right now, I get what folks are saying about it — it’s consistent, solid, and enjoyable, just doesn’t blow minds or anything.

On a sidenote, it’s startling to look at the overall discography and realize how much music these guys put out in the 21st century that I’ve just … totally missed those album cycles somehow

(The new record reminds me, in some ways, of buying a Crystal Method album in like 2004 - it was fine, or a little better than fine, you know?)

boxedjoy otm

Live Again is pure gold, who knew all I wanted from life was a My Bloody Valentine / Todd Edwards mashup

New album is nice on first listen, but maybe like a slightly less thumping retread of the last one?

not heard the new one yet but this made me smile

We used to get quite tongue-tied around him (Weatherall). I remember being in a nightclub asking him what synths he’d bought. He said: “I’m waiting for the Chekhov Warp.” Which I took to mean a new synth we hadn’t heard of. A couple of weeks later I realised he meant he was waiting for the “cheque off Warp” records to buy new equipment, so when we remixed Saint Etienne’s Like a Motorway we called it the Chekhov Warp mix.

lol, that's fantastic.

Sick remix too - and new to me!

the more you hear re weatherall, the more you love him.