Good news never comes alone: the Chemical Brothers, 30 years of career this year, are back in shape with a new album and have even embarked Beck for a track just unveiled.
Before the release on September 8 of For That Beautiful Feeling, tenth studio album, the duo formed in Manchester by Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons will set up their machines as headliners on Saturday at Rock en Seine, a festival at the gates of Paris (150,000 spectators in 2022 over four days).
“We had already brought them in 2004 for the second edition, they have a real rock energy in their electro, I who am a rock fanatic I had hooked immediately from their first records, with this bridge that they managed to create between genres”, present for AFP Matthieu Ducos, director of the event.
On the heels of the first track in their history, Song To The Siren (1993, title borrowed from American musician Tim Buckley), the two graduates in medieval history released their original album Exit Planet Dust (1995). And flirted with techno and pop/rock vibes. Winning recipe with 13 million albums sold over the course of their career. “It’s a band with a long history, which could be enough, but in addition there is a new album in sight and therefore there is a chance that even the fans will be a little surprised”, continues the person in charge of Rock in the Seine.
The surprise has already come from the single released this week, Skipping Like A Stone with Beck. “The Chemical Brothers have a predilection for exploration,” commented in a press release the American, pop researcher who does not like to repeat himself either. “They have this way of sitting in an unusual place, between different eras of electronic music and DJ culture. It’s as if they had one foot in several decades at the same time, it’s unique compared to their peers, ”underlines the interpreter of the hit Loser.
Skipping Like A Stone first embraces current pop canons before the Chem Bros, their diminutive, inject a little virus from the dancefloor. “They do this with fluidity, despite their age (they are in their fifties, editor’s note) they remain relevant at a time when all the chapels have exploded, like the playlists of the younger generations between rap, techno, pop”, salute for AFP Antoine Dabrowski, editor-in-chief of Tsugi Radio, webradio of the eponymous French magazine.
“And they still do it very well live, this mixture of hard-hitting techno and very melodic sounds”, dissects this specialist in contemporary music. Without forgetting the visual side of their shows.
“Today, it’s classic to see that, but they were among the first to project videos during their sets, at one time it also felt like a competition between Radiohead and the Chemical for the most beautiful videos on stage”, develops Antoine Dabrowski. And they are able to open up to a new audience, as explained by the editor-in-chief of Tsugi Radio. “Music is always a story of cycles, and today there is this tendency in techno to go fast, hit hard – we are no longer at all in the minimal – by adding dance ingredients, and this fusion, the Chemical Brothers were the precursors of it, still do it very well and a younger audience finds its way to it”.
In addition to Beck, the Dust Brothers, the first name considered for the group, also invited a French artist, Halo Maud, to put her voice on Live Again. “They have this taste for voices, when I think of the Chemicals, I think of the voices, the melodies, the gimmicks, the felted texture of Halo Maud’s voice, that of Beck with this characteristic smoothness, that’s what they will look, ”concludes Antoine Dabrowski.
