For Rave-Ready Electronic Duo the Chemical Brothers, a 10th Studio Album Is a Feat and a Challenge

Ed Simons, left, and Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers perform onstage at Field Day, Aug. 20, 2022, at Victoria Park in London. (AP)
Ed Simons, left, and Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers perform onstage at Field Day, Aug. 20, 2022, at Victoria Park in London. (AP)
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For Rave-Ready Electronic Duo the Chemical Brothers, a 10th Studio Album Is a Feat and a Challenge

Ed Simons, left, and Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers perform onstage at Field Day, Aug. 20, 2022, at Victoria Park in London. (AP)
Ed Simons, left, and Tom Rowlands of the Chemical Brothers perform onstage at Field Day, Aug. 20, 2022, at Victoria Park in London. (AP)

Beloved British electronic duo the Chemical Brothers released their 10th album on Friday, more than three decades into their career. But does it get any easier with time?

Not according to one-half of the outfit, Tom Rowlands.

“I think it’s just more complicated” he said, speaking via Zoom from his studio in the UK. “Everyone’s got a new theory on how to do it.”

Prior to the album’s release, Rowlands and Ed Simons shared four singles from the forthcoming album, “For That Beautiful Feeling” — including their second collaboration with Beck, the track “Skipping Like A Stone.” They previously worked with the singer on the 2015 track “Wide Open.”

They also made it a point to test the tracks out on dance floors and festival fields prior to the album — “playing them (live) as we write them,” as Rowlands explains — which, in turn, influenced their studio decisions.

“I don’t know if it’s the right way to release an album,” he smiled. “I can’t quite keep up with what is the right way, but it’s how it’s happening.”

It’s working. Audiences responded well to the smattering of tracks from “For That Beautiful Feeling” that the Chemical Brothers wove into their sets this summer, no doubt drumming up excitement for the new release.

The rave-ready “No Reason” became the lead single from the record — because it felt “fresh and different” and also “really fun to play live,” says Rowlands. But really, it’s all about how he and Simons feel about the track — and sometimes if a song doesn’t go over well in front of an audience, well, that just solidifies its value to the duo.

“Sometimes something going down really badly, will just convince you of its greatness even more,” Rowlands says of this live-first tactic. “You’re like, ‘Yes. People aren’t ready for this!’”

Together since 1989, with 10 albums and countless performances across the globe, the duo has seen their fair share of the good and the bad.

Headlining the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury Festival in 2000 is a standout — though Rowlands says it was “so massive it’s hard to get a handle on what you’re doing.”

And then there’s the bad: A very different experience during a 9:30 a.m. set in Ibiza, early on in their career that didn’t quite go to plan.

They were “the wrong people at the wrong place at the wrong time,” Rowlands recalled. “Just lots of anger and tears ... sensible people would’ve gone to bed and then have a nice juice breakfast.”

For the nighttime live music lovers, the Chemical Brothers are looking forward to getting back on the road for a tour that kicks off Oct. 26 in Glasgow. They’re eager to use stunning visuals from longtime collaborators Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall — and test drive additional music that didn’t make the record, or as Rowlands puts it: “thousands of hours of noodling.”

On tour, “you can do your lights exactly how you want and get everything really tuned to how you want it to be,” Rowlands added. “That’s really exciting for us.”

In addition to the new album and the tour, the duo will release a book in October titled “Paused in Cosmic Reflection,” authored by Simons and Rowlands’ friend Robin Turner, with their input. But as a band who are constantly looking forward, it isn’t something Rowlands is quite ready to read.

“I’m going to save it for a flight or retirement.” He smiled.



Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
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Video Game Performers Will Go on Strike Over Artificial Intelligence Concerns 

SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)
SAG-AFTRA signage is seen on the side of the headquarters in Los Angeles on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023. (AP)

Hollywood's video game performers announced they would go on strike Thursday, throwing part of the entertainment industry into another work stoppage after talks for a new contract with major game studios broke down over artificial intelligence protections.

The strike — the second for video game voice actors and motion capture performers under the Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists — will begin at 12:01 a.m. Friday. The move comes after nearly two years of negotiations with gaming giants, including divisions of Activision, Warner Bros. and Walt Disney Co., over a new interactive media agreement.

SAG-AFTRA negotiators say gains have been made over wages and job safety in the video game contract, but that the two sides remained split over the regulation of generative AI. A spokesperson for the video game producers, Audrey Cooling, said the studios offered AI protections, but SAG-AFTRA’s negotiating committee said that the studios’ definition of who constitutes a "performer" is key to understanding the issue of who would be protected.

"The industry has told us point blank that they do not necessarily consider everyone who is rendering movement performance to be a performer that is covered by the collective bargaining agreement," SAG-AFTRA Chief Contracts Officer Ray Rodriguez said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. He said some physical performances are being treated as "data."

Without guardrails, game companies could train AI to replicate an actor’s voice, or create a digital replica of their likeness without consent or fair compensation, the union said.

"We strike as a matter of last resort. We have given this process absolutely as much time as we responsibly can," Rodriguez told reporters. "We have exhausted the other possibilities, and that is why we’re doing it now."

Cooling said the companies' offer "extends meaningful AI protections."

"We are disappointed the union has chosen to walk away when we are so close to a deal, and we remain prepared to resume negotiations," she said.

Andi Norris, an actor and member of the union's negotiating committee, said that those who do stunt work or creature performances would still be at risk under the game companies' offer.

"The performers who bring their body of work to these games create a whole variety of characters, and all of that work must be covered. Their proposal would carve out anything that doesn’t look and sound identical to me as I sit here, when, in truth, on any given week I am a zombie, I am a soldier, I am a zombie soldier," Norris said. "We cannot and will not accept that a stunt or movement performer giving a full performance on stage next to a voice actor isn’t a performer."

The global video game industry generates well over $100 billion dollars in profit annually, according to game market forecaster Newzoo. The people who design and bring those games to life are the driving force behind that success, SAG-AFTRA said.

Members voted overwhelmingly last year to give leadership the authority to strike. Concerns about how movie studios will use AI helped fuel last year’s film and television strikes by the union, which lasted four months.

The last interactive contract, which expired in November 2022, did not provide protections around AI but secured a bonus compensation structure for voice actors and performance capture artists after an 11-month strike that began in October 2016. That work stoppage marked the first major labor action from SAG-AFTRA following the merger of Hollywood’s two largest actors unions in 2012.

The video game agreement covers more than 2,500 "off-camera (voiceover) performers, on-camera (motion capture, stunt) performers, stunt coordinators, singers, dancers, puppeteers, and background performers," according to the union.

Amid the tense interactive negotiations, SAG-AFTRA created a separate contract in February that covered independent and lower-budget video game projects. The tiered-budget independent interactive media agreement contains some of the protections on AI that video game industry titans have rejected. Games signed to an interim interactive media agreement, tiered-budget independent interactive agreement or interim interactive localization agreement are not part of the strike, the union said.