Chemical Brothers

A demo of Noise.io – an iPhone synthesizer – with Chemical Brothers’ style arpeggiation/sequencing.

The Chemical Brothers have launched Midnight Madness with Google Earth – a strange mashup that takes fan videos and plots them on Google Earth. 

The idea is that you can surf around the world with Google Earth and see what Chemical Brothers fans are up to. 

Here’s the link to view the project (requires Google Earth).

I’ve been impressed by a lot of musicians’ new media projects, but Midnight Madness isn’t that successful. It takes a long time to download Google Earth, and, once you’ve loaded up Midnight Madness in it, it’s cumbersome to use. 

If you give it a try, let me know what you think.

Sometimes it’s a good thing to run an electronic music website. When I opened the mail to find a review copy of the Chemical Brother’s latest, Brotherhood, it was one of those times.

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. Read more…

Need proof that you don’t need the latest and greatest gear to make electronic music?

Just check out the funk on the Chemical Brothers live gear set up!

Here’s the extreme gear porn close up to make things clear for you:

Their Roland SH-101 looks beat up, with tape on the corners. Their Octave Cat looks like they play it with a hammer. Their Akai MPC looks like they either took a blowtorch to it.

Next time you think you need new gear to make music, remember what the Chemical Brothers are doing with their knackered gear.

Photos via Ben from Galactic, via MusicThing

The Chemical Brothers are looking for your help to create a global video project for their track Brotherhood.

Make your own short clip (from 2 to 20 seconds) or photograph about your favourite Chemical Brothers track. Then upload your work here on to the Google Map (after the jump) and tag it to it’s exact global location.

A selection of the best work will be featured in a new concept music video for the Chemical Brothers, To celebrate the launch of the new Chemical Brothers’ album ‘Brotherhood’ videos will feature on a Google Earth channel available on September 1, as well as on the Chemical Brothers Youtube channel.

Deadline for submissions via Chemical Brothers’ website:

Monday 25th August 2008 – 13.00 GMT – BUT THE SOONER THE BETTER!