Here’s a classic from Fatboy Slim, the music video for Right Here, Right Now.

via freecss

Here’s the latest from The Prodigy, Take Me To The Hospital.

via ProdigyChannel:

‘We shot parts of the video in a derelict mental hospital. A proper death trap. Holes in the floor and shit falling out the ceiling. We broke in which involved being chased by dogs and a run in with the cops. We wanted a hospital in there but didnt want to shove it down peoples throats. The video was recorded onto vhs. We wanted it to look like an 80s movie youve just found at the back of the cupboard. Doing it analogue gave it a real unique look that you cant create on a shiney computer. Keep it real. dugdale and the prodigy’

Take Me To The Hospital (’09 EQ mix) is the third single from the number 1 album Invaders Must Die.

Single out 31st August 2009 – pre-order here: http://bit.ly/ProdigyShop

The Crystal Method, Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland, have announced a remix contest with Indaba Music.

Remix their track Come Back Clean, and you could win a microKorg XL and get your mix featured on TCM’s site.

Come Back Clean, from their new album Divided By Night, features Metric vocalist Emily Haines and drummer Samantha Maloney (Hole, Motley Crue, Peaches, Chelsea Girls). Check out the video above to get an inside look at Crystalwerks studio and get a glimpse of how the song was created.

Remix submissions are due by September 15th.

Prizes:

• The Grand Prize Winner will be rocking out on a spankin new microKorg XL synthesizer and will be able to check out all of The Crystal Method’s gear on their tour of the duo’s studio! On top of this new gear, the winner’s remix will be promoted in Filter’s media section, land a spot in the PSSST digital sampler distributed by FILTER Magazine and will be featured as a streaming track on The Crystal Method MySpace page.
• 2 Runners Up will each receive a Skull Candy skate deck and headphone set as well as a signed copy of The Crystal Method’s Divided By Night album!
• 10 Honorable Mention Winners, as decided by popular vote, will receive signed copies of The Crystal Method’s Divded by Night album.

via apc

Image: Live’ N Loud Magazine

A fantastic shot of the The Crystal Method jamming live.

via the Synthtopia Flickr Group

lasvegasweekly caught up with Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland of The Crystal Method as they made a tour stop in their hometown.

Tour Dates:

• Wed 6/17 San Francisco, CA – Grand Ballroom
• Sat 6/27, Los Angeles, CA – Electric Daisy Carnival
• Thu 7/30, Pontiac, MI – The Crofoot
• Fri 7/31, Columbus, OH – Boma
• Sat 8/1, Norfolk, VA – The Norva
• Sun 8/2, Charlotte, NC – Amos’ Southend
• Mon 8/3, Nashville, TN – Limelight
• Tue 8/4, Little Rock, AR – Juanita’s Cantina
• Wed 8/5, Tulsa, OK – Cain’s Ballroom
• Thu 8/6, Albuquerque, NM – Sunshine Theatre
• Fri 8/7, Afton, NY – The New Echo Lake (DJ set)
• Sat 8/8, Washington D.C. – Fur (DJ set)
• Sun 8/9, San Diego, CA – Hard Rock Hotel (DJ set)

How about a visit to Synthtopia territory guys? Chicago, Minneapolis, or Kansas City?

If you’ve caught The Crystal Method on this tour, leave a comment and lets us know what you think!

DJmag took a visit to Brighton to have a chat with Norman Cook and talk about his latest projects.

The Prodigy do Warrior’s Dance, live at the Oxegen Festival.

via MRTTVD

The Crystal Method’s Ken Jordan and Scott Kirkland fourth studio effort, Divided By Night, is due out May 12, 2009 via Tiny e Records. They’ve released a music video promo for the first single, Down in the Now.

In conjunction with the release of Divided By Night, TCM will return to the road this spring for a major national tour as a live band.

“This new tour is going to be a completely new look,” says Ken Jordan. “It’s like tearing down your house and rebuilding it.”

If you’ve listened to Divided By Night, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Divided By Night Track Listing:

• Divided By Night
• Dirty Thirty (featuring Peter Hook)
• Drown in the Now (featuring Matisyahu)
• Kling to the Wreckage (featuring Justin Warfield)?5
• Smile?
• Sine Language (featuring LMFAO)
• Double Down Under
• Come Back Clean (featuring Emily Haines)
• Slipstream (featuring Jason Lytle)
• Black Rainbows (featuring Stefanie King Warfield)
• Gloomy (featuring Peter Hook) —— WORKING TITLE
• Falling Hard (featuring Meiko)
• Play for Real (B Side) (featuring The Heavy)

The Crystal Method feat Matisyahu – Drown In The Now

via ingrooves:

The first release from The Crystal Method’s new album, Divided By Night.

This is the video for the forthcoming Prodigy single Omen.

Let me know what you think – good stuff, or are they trying too hard to relive their Firestarter days?

via The Prodigy

Brotherhood is an unusual release. The box set comes with two CDs. The first CD is a greatest hits collection, spanning the CB’s 13 year career. It also comes with a new track, Keep My Composure. 

It wasn’t that long ago that the Chemical Brothers put out their last greatest hits release, Singles 93-03. And there’s a lot of overlap between the two collections. 

Judged for its own merits, disc one is clearly a great collection of some of the most influential electronic dance music of the last fifteen years. What’s really interesting with this release, though, is the second disc, which contains Electronic Battle Weapons 1-10.

According to the band, “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 Weapons 1-9 have only been available on various limited formats and this is the first time they have been widely available.”

To these ears, Electronic Battle Weapons is some of the most interesting work that the Chemical Brothers have done. The tracks are much longer than their singles, giving them time to stretch out, and are less tied to traditional song structure than singles. 

The tracks don’t stray far from the Chemical Brothers’ familiar style, but they seem to highlight the best facets of the group’s sound: massive beats, great synth basslines and aggressive noise effects. Highlights of the disc include Electronic Battle Weapon 4 (Freak of the Week), Electronic Battle Weapon 7 (Acid Children) and Electronic Battle Weapon 9. 

Extra discs are often throwaway remixes and second rate tracks. With Brotherhood, the Chemical Brothers give you their greatest hits on disc 1 – but the best stuff is on disc 2. 

Essential listening for Chemical Brothers fans.

TRACKLISTING:

DISC 1
01. Galvanize
02. Hey Boy Hey Girl
03. Block Rockin’ Beats
04. Do It Again
05. Believe
06.Star Guitar
07. Let Forever Be (Featuring Noel Gallagher)
08. Leave Home
09. Keep My Composure (Featuring Spank Rock)
10. Saturate
11. Out Of Control
12. The Golden Path – (Featuring The Flaming Lips)
13. Setting Sun – (Featuring Noel Gallagher)
14. Chemical Beats

DISC 2
1-10 Electronic Battle Weapons

The big beat sound is still great – but Prodigy’s Firestarter video hasn’t aged so well.

I remember it as being more dark, twisted and David Lynch. Watching it now, though, Keith Flint looks a lot like an emo version of Dilbert’s pointy-haired boss.

And lyrics like “I’m a firestarter, twisted firestarter,” don’t sound so dark and twisted coming from Dilbert’s emo pointy-haired boss.

If you’re into big beats and classic analog synth grooves, The Chemical Brothers deliver with We Are The Night. It’s a quirky album that manages to be sonically experimental within a dance-friendly rhythmic framework.

The CD kicks off with the chemically induced No Path To Follow, which is basically the phrase “There’s no path to follow” repeated in a high male voice and an unnaturally deep bass voice. This seques into the strange distorted sound effects of We Are The Night. The Brothers immediately lay down a classic analog sequencer groove, with layers of sampled drums, bizarro synth effects and lots of great synth sounds. It climaxes with a strange retro-Eno chorus that sounds like it could have come from Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy.

The first single from the CD, Do It Again, captures a lot of the vibe of the release. Do It Again is this album’s Push The Button. On the track, The Chemical Brothers mix lots of lo-fi weirdness and quirky effects into a fairly straightforward dance groove. Just when you’re thinking their getting soft or pop, though, they throw in some left-field @#$# that leaves you scratching your head.

The Salmon Dance is an example of this. It’s basically a sing-song rap about how to do The Salmon Dance, but the Chemical Brothers inject a healthy dose of weirdness and humor into the track.

In addition to the vocal tracks, there are several instrumental tracks. The standout among these is Burst Generator, which makes great use of retro analog sounds, transforming them into something that sounds cutting edge. Another great instrumental is Harpoons, which has a blissed-out 70’s experimental electronic music vibe.

The tracks on We Are The Night don’t have as many obvious hooks as those on their previous release, Push The Button. Nevertheless, The Chemical Brothers’ latest release is one of their best yet, combining great beats, analog synth grooves and a respect for the sounds of electronic music of the last thirty-plus years to deliver an album that’s danceable, intelligent, quirky and fun.

Tracks:

• No Path To Follow
• We Are The Night
• All Rights Reversed (The Klaxons)
• Saturate
• Do It Again (Ali Love)
• Das Spiegal
• The Salmon Dance (Fatlip)
• Burst Generator
• A Modern Midnight Conversation
• Battle Scars (Willie Mason)
• Harpoons
• The Pills Won’t Help You Now (Midlake) Lis

The Chemical Brothers have announced a remix contest for their track The Salmon Dance (above). Here are the details:

Here’s your chance to remix The Salmon Dance!

Just download the zip file below to get the raw audio files and mix away.
CHEMICAL BROTHERS REMIX FILES – click to download

Post your completed remix as the first track in your MySpace music player and then leave a comment HERE with the link.
The winner of the contest will have his or her remix featured in The Chemical Brothers’ MySpace player for 2 weeks – and receive a prize pack of Chemical Brothers 12″ singles. All entries must be received by Friday, August 24th at noon EST. Please keep an mp3 of your remix, as the winner will need to provide us with one to put in our player.

It’s a cool opportunity to do something F’d up!

The Chemical Brothers upcoming album, We Are The Night, is set for release on June 19th 2007. According to the group, it’s “the Chemical Brothers finest record yet, twelve tracks of psychedelic warehouse party acid music.”

Here’s their press release on it:

We Are The Night is a route map through modern psychedelia; a derailed rollercoaster that barrels the listener onto a journey that moves seamlessly from frenetic percussion workout that threatens to splash out of the speakers, to metronomic pulses that sound like the kind of music that gets played out at some kind of future disco populated entirely by robots; from the wheezing groans of modular synthesizers that sound like they’ve been left out in the rain to die, to hallucinogenic public service announcements about salt water fish. All the while, disembodied robo-voices boom out mind control commandments as guest vocals weave in and out of tracks like previously undiscovered instruments…

Effortlessly evoking the dancefloors of Manchester and Minneapolis in the early ’80s and London of 2007, We Are The Night is The Chemical Brothers at their very best. Infectious from the ominous opening through to the gorgeous dying embers, the record features some of their most mind-blowing music to date, a massive step up for the duo in terms of both production and sound. The album builds on the band’s immense back catalogue and reaffirms them as true pioneers of electronic music, a band who are consistently hugely successful both critically and commercially.

We Are The Night follows on from 2005’s Push The Button, which featured the huge single Galvanize. As is often the way with Chemical Brothers records, it achieved a life of its own, soundtracking everything from South American raves to the London’s Notting Hill Carnival and all points in between. The duo recently sneaked out an album preview (the anonymously released ultra limited “Electronic Battle Weapon” 8 & 9). Much of the record has been tested out on dancefloors across the world during the past twelve months.

Tracks:

• No Path To Follow
• We Are The Night
• All Rights Reversed (Featuring The Klaxons)
• Saturate
• Do It Again (Featuring Ali Love)
• Das Spiegel
• The Salmon Dance (Featuring Fatlip)
• Burst Generator
• A Modern Midnight Conversation
• Battle Scars (Featuring Willy Mason)
• Harpoons
• The Pills Won’t Help You Now (Featuring Midlake)

Push the Button is the CB’s fifth studio album, and it’s a nicely crafted, mature work of pop electronica. There’s nothing on the album that’s too surprising or edgy, but it’s full of well-crafted, stylish work.

The CD is strong overall, full of the big beats and trippy effects that have made the Chemical Brothers one of the top electronica acts.

It kicks off with Galvanize. The Brothers are joined by A Tribe Called Quest guest rapper Q-Tip. The track mixes a Bhangra-style violin sample with big beats. Hold Tight London is a hypnotic track with female vocals that shows off the Brothers melodic style.

Come Inside sexes things up a bit. It’s a big-beat track overlayed with a female/vocoded vocalist asking “Would you like to come inside?”

Shake Break Bounce is short but sweet. It’s built around a flamenco guitar sample. Once the Chemical Brothers get done with it, it sounds a bit like Fatboy Slim running Ottmar Liebert through a blender. Video game noises bounce between the speakers, and the whole thing starts an stops on a dime.

Push the Button is a good album – probably as good as anything that the Chemical Brothers has ever done. After several disappointing albums recently from 90’s electronica artists, this CD is a welcome changes. Push the Button is an album that should keep Chemical Brothers fans happy, and win them some new ones.

Tracks:

• Galvanize
• The Boxer
• Believe
• Hold Tight London
• Come Inside
• The Big Jump
• Left Right
• Close Your Eyes
• Shake Bounce Break
• Marvo Ging
• Surface To Air

Unfortunately, the soundtrack CD is a bit of a disappointment. While there are flashes of brilliance, the soundtrack often jump-cuts between traditional orchestration and electronica, without really integrating the two worlds. Worse still, the soundtrack suffers from too many cooks. In addition to BT’s work, about half the tracks feature other composers, Trevor Morris and Michael Dimattia, who seem to have been brought in for the more traditional cues.

Much of BT’s orchestral work on the soundtrack is reminiscent of classic John Barry themes – broad, simple themes emphasizing the string and brass sections. BT makes some interesting work of looped and sliced-up orchestral elements at times, but seems to largely use the orchestra in a traditional way and contrast that with his electronic work.

Standout tracks include a short ambient electronic piece, Quantum Computer; Micheal Dimattia’s EDI is The Whole Idea, which mixes orchestral themes with electronic percussion; Henry’s Death, a driving martial piece that successfully layers traditional orchestral writing and some far out electronic percussion; and the evocative, exotic Korean Waterhole.

The soundtrack does not include a pop collaboration BT did with David Bowie or tracks by Incubus that were in the film. This is probably a good decision, because they would have made the sountrack more schizophrenic than it is.

All in all, the Stealth soundtrack is more traditional and restrained than we’d expect from BT. While that may have been what Stealth director Rob Cohen’s wanted, it seems that if you’re going to get BT to do an action movie soundtrack, you should set him free to do some crazy f’d-up stuff.

We’re looking forward to hearing future soundtracks by BT that provide him more room to cut loose. In the meantime, though, BT’s Stealth will be an interesting addition to the libraries of hardcore BT fans, and will whet your appetite for a BT soundtrack that really lets him cut loose.

Tracks:

• Stealth Main Title
• War Machine
• EDI’s Arrival
• The Pilots’ Theme
• The Joy of Flight
• EDI’s New Data
• The Vertical Drop
• Hellava 1st Mission
• Lightning Strike
• Thailand
• Love Theme
• I’ll Tell You Back at the Boat
• Quantum Computer
• EDI is the Whole Idea
• Flight to Tajikistan
• Tin Man Will Prosecute
• Attack at Tajikistan
• Henry’s Death
• The Aftermath
• Kara’s Ejection
• Camel Hump
• Korean Waterhole
• Saving EDI
• EDI Feels Sorry
• Cummings’ Suicide
• DMZ
• Death of Col YunE
• EDI’s Sacrifice

Cook’s pop approach to techno has made him one of the leading techno artists. Cook builds his tracks from almost nothing. He takes a few samples and speeds them, slows them, and slices and dices them until the original sound is twisted into rhythmic noise. On top of his manipulated samples, he lays down big beat grooves that turn his almost avant-garde sound manipulation into danceable tunes.

You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby has some of Fatboy’s most popular tracks on it. “The Rockafeller Skank” is one of those tunes that is immediately likeable and sticks in your head. The track features a sample of the words “Right about now, the Funk Soul Brother. Check it out, now, the Funk Soul Brother.” That’s it for the lyrics, but Slim manipulates the sample in so many ways that it makes the song unforgettably catchy.

“Praise You” is the closest thing to a straight pop song on the CD. The lyrics are simple and direct:

“We’ve come a long long way together,
Through the hard times and the good,
I have to celebrate you baby,
I have to praise you like I should”

On the chorus, Slim takes the phrase “I have to praise you”, and repeats it over another groove. The combination of catchy beats, techno-sliced vocal samples, and reverential love lyrics make it a great cut.

The other tracks use similar techniques to create big-beat dance tunes. Other great tracks are “Right Here, Right Now”. It uses a wordless chorus and string samples to back up a female rapper shouting the title lyrics. “You’re Not from Brighton” reworks the old-school lo-fi sampledelic sound that groups like the Beastie Boys and De La Soul perfected in the 80’s.

Unfortunately, one track will make most listeners reach for the remote. “Fatboy Slim is Fucking in Heaven” repeats the obnoxious sample over and over. If it were provocative or sexy, the track might be interesting, but it’s just monotonous repetition of the title:

“Fatboy Slim is fucking in heaven
Fatboy Slim is fucking in heaven
Fatboy Slim is fucking in heaven”

The last track, “Acid 8000″ is a techno track, heavy on the 303. Slim always seems to throw on a 303 techno track, and for that, we have to praise him like we should. Slim takes a TB-303 bassline, a drum machine and a handful of samples and turns it into a driving cut that techno fans will appreciate. “If this don’t make your booty move, your booty must be dead!”

On You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby, he’s at the top of his form, delivering big-beat cuts for dancing and driving.