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)
TT

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.



How the World’s Press Rated Paris’s Olympics Opening Ceremony

Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
TT

How the World’s Press Rated Paris’s Olympics Opening Ceremony

Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
Former French football player Zinedine Zidane holds the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games in Paris on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Paris broke with tradition on Friday by turning the Olympic Opening Ceremony into a parade down the River Seine rather than a stadium-based show.

TV viewers around the world were treated to a spectacle performed on bridges, the riverbank and rooftops, culminating with French athletes Marie-Jose Perec and Teddy Riner lighting the Olympic cauldron and a performance from Canada's Celine Dion.

However, the 6,000-odd athletes, 3,000 performers, 300,000 spectators and dozens of world leaders had to endure heavy rain for much of the event.

Here's how the world's media judged Paris's ambitious ceremony:

FRANCE

Newspaper Le Monde wrote in a rave review that director Thomas Jolly "succeeded in his challenge of presenting an immersive show in a capital transformed into a gigantic stage".

Right-leaning Le Figaro said the show was "great but some of it was just too much". It said viewers "could have been spared" images including an apparent recreation of the painting of The Last Supper of Jesus and his apostles in front of a fashion show.

UNITED STATES

"Opening Ceremony Misses the Boat" headlined the New York Times's television review.

It wrote that the river parade "turned the ceremony into something bigger, more various and more intermittently entertaining. But it also turned it into something more ordinary — just another bloated made-for-TV spectacle".

The Washington Post was more glowing, noting that the organizer's "bold thinking" brought a shine back to an event that has seen its popularity wane in recent years.

CHINA

China's Xinhua state news agency said the ceremony succeeded in showcasing France.

"There were Can-Can girls, a homage to the reconstruction of Notre Dame and of course the French Revolution, with fireworks, heavy metal and singers who appeared to have lost a battle with the guillotine.

"If there was a downside to the ceremony, it is that any event performed over such a long distance has to struggle with continuity, and the big difference between this ceremony and others is that the parade of athletes was mixed in with the performances."

SOUTH KOREA

South Korean media noted the "impressive" imagination of using the whole city as the backdrop but the event was overshadowed by the country's team being misintroduced as North Korea.

South Korea's CBS radio said while the incident was no doubt an honest mistake, it was disappointing the Paris organizers failed at what should have been a very basic part of the event.

GERMANY

"As beautiful as it was mad," wrote Germany's Frankfurter Allgemeine. "France revolutionized the opening ceremony ... by the end even the rain had been defeated."

Tabloid Bild was bowled over by Celine Dion's return to the stage after four years, defying illness to "sing just as in the best of times. She deserves a gold medal for this performance."

BRITAIN

British tabloid The Sun joked "Wet The Games Begin!" on its front page alongside an image of the Eiffel Tower surrounded by laser beams, and described the ceremony as spectacular.

The Daily Mail's headline read "La Farce!", mainly in reference to the train disruption earlier in the day, but the paper also judged Paris's gamble on the weather had "backfired spectacularly".

A writer for the Guardian newspaper described the parade of boats on the Seine as "like watching an endless series of weirdly nationalistic office parties" but concluded Celine Dion had rescued the event with a "jaw dropping" performance.

ITALY

La Gazzetta dello Sport said the ceremony was "something unprecedented, even extraordinary. A great show or a long, tedious work, depending on your point of view and sensibility."

The mainstream Italian newspaper Il Corriere della Sera likened the show to a contemporary art performance, noting that "some (spectators) were bored, others were amused, many found the spectacle disappointing".

The left-leaning Italian daily La Repubblica said the ceremony overshadowed the athletes.

"A lot of France, a lot of Paris, very little Olympics.... a mirror that the immortal Paris turned on herself and discovered that she was so much, too much and soaking wet".