Chemical Brothers Podcast

Peer Comment to Isaac Lynn post on the Synthesizer

Hi Isaac,

Once again I have enjoyed reading your extremely informative post on the roots of the synthesizer. Seems to me that you’re quite a synth nut like me and I like how you have condensed this information into a well-formatted post. While reading your article it made me realize how far we have come in terms of synth technologies over the years. From entire rooms filled with modular devices for synth architecture to a piece of code emulating analog devices of the time running in our little laptops. It is also amazing to see how much digital synthesis technologies have developed and continue to do so. I didn’t know that it was the Mixtur-Trautonium that was used to develop the sound effects for the Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “The Birds”.


My only comment for the article is the lack of mentioning of Harald Bode whose synths designs were the bases for Bob Moog and Donald Buchla.

Original article available here

The Chemical Brothers and their Influence to Pop Music

Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons are the musical geniuses responsible for the British Electronic outfit known as The Chemical Brothers. Tom and Ed grew up in South England and met during their high school years listening to groups such as Kraftwerk, New Order, Cabaret Voltaire, Heaven 17, Public Enemy and some gothic rock like Sisters of Mercy and Fields of Nephalim. With an eclectic, open-minded taste in music, they both drew inspiration from a wide array of genres such as Hip Hop, Rock, Psychedelic and Experimental forms of music. Along with artists such as The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, The Crystal Method and others, they are responsible for shaping the sound of the genre known as “Big Beat”.

Tom and Ed started their careers as nighttime DJs at a club called “Naked Under Leather”. They spun Hip Hop, Techno and House music under the alias of “The 237 Turbo Nutters”, a name that symbolically referred to their old “Blackburn raving days”. Around 1992, Tom and Ed started making their own music using synthesizers, samplers, a computer and a cheap Hitachi hi-fi system for monitors. They now called themselves “The Dust Brothers” and recorded their first song called “Song to the Siren” which they released on their own record label called “Diamond Records”. The song was offered to the public as a limited edition release with only 500 white label copies pressed. Considering the song was set at a very low BPM of 111 Beats per minute, they saw minimal interest from record shops around London at that time. They slowly found support from a London based DJ called Andrew Weatherall, who frequented their song on all his sets. After getting signed to his label Junior Boy’s Own, Tom and Ed released their first EP called the ‘Fourteenth Century Sky’ in January 1994. This EP contained the ground breaking single ‘Chemical-Beats’, which was responsible for defining the genre known as “Big Beat”.

With their rising popularity they soon faced legal threats for their artist name, from the original duo that used it offshore in America. The American counterparts also known as “The Dust Brothers”, were successful musicians composing music assets for the Beastie Boys, Beck and movies like the Fight Club. Tom and Ed quickly decided to call themselves as “The Chemical Brothers” drawing inspiration from their song ‘Chemical Beats’. They released their debut album ‘Exit Planet Dust’ with the same alias, which would quickly become a chart topper at No.9 on the UK charts. With the wide spread success of ‘Exit Planet Dust’ in 1995, The Chemical Brothers were signed to Virgin Records and given their own record label called “Freestyle Dust”. They quickly released the single “Life is Sweet” featuring vocals from their friend Tim Burgess, the lead vocalist from “The Charlatans” and with its success would start to remix tracks from famous artists such as Noel Gallagher (Oasis), Paul Weller, Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy and many others.

Their collaboration with vocalist Noel Gallagher on the song ‘Setting Sun’ would put them on the UK Charts with the first number one single ever. As their song ‘Setting Sun’ had extremely identical musical composition to The Beatles’ song ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’, it was suspected to have unauthorized samples by The Beatles’ lawyers. This would end up having Virgin Records hire a musicologist to prove that they did not sample material from the original recording. By the beginning of 1996, their album ‘Exit Planet Dust’ went gold, now making it their highest selling album to date.

With the release of their second album “Dig your Own Hole” in 1997, The Chemical Brothers were once again chart toppers with the song ‘Block Rockin’ Beats” at No.1 on the UK Charts. It would become the album that would pave the way for the British Electronic Group to build a large fan base in America. During this time The Chemical Brothers extensively toured around America and received countless offers for remixes from artists even such as Metallica. Turning down the offer, they concentrated heavily on touring to build a larger fan base in America. Their song ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’, would win them a Grammy Award the same year for the Best Rock Instrumental Performance.

To add to their success, The Chemical Brothers released their follow up albums Surrender (1999), Come with Us (2001), Push The Button (2005) and We are the Night (2007). All the albums were chart toppers on the UK charts and have proved them to be amongst the most talented musicians that Britain has to offer to the world. They have continued to make collaborations and remixes with famous artists such as Fatboy Slim, Kylie Minogue, Klaxons, Midlake, Ali Love and others. Their work is spotted in countless video games such as Project Gotham Racing, Burnout Revenge, Lara Croft: Tomb Raider, Lumines II and WRC: Extreme. In Recent times, The Chemical Brothers have made their way in to film composing for the movies Hanna and Black Swan. Their live shows continue to be groundbreaking presentations of electronic music and visuals that have fans mesmerized around the world. Their albums have been highly influential candidates at impacting pop culture and influenced the sound of mainstream electronic music, as we know it today.

As a professional in this industry, I find the creative developments in production performed by The Chemical Brothers as milestones followed by many of the “new school” electronic music producers. Some of the techniques such as “mashed up drum beats”, granular synthesis, “glitching” musical parts and stuck notes were first found featured in sections of their songs. In my opinion and others I feel that they were extremely influential in shaping the sound of electronic music today, contributing with both abstract and melodious musical ideas to pop music. Their incorporation of arrangements characteristic of House music, has popularized the genre and has made Pop Music more dance oriented in todays time. In my opinion it is off great importance to study the musical trail of The Chemical Brothers to understand the changes in Pop Music and its evolution. They will always be a great source of inspiration for countless producers to come.

Peer Comment to Isaac Lynn post on Wendy Walter

Hi Isaac,

I have enjoyed reading your article on Wendy (Walter) Carlos and the impact she has had on shaping electronic music today. Your article is concise and formatted well, while accurately presenting her work and influences. Prior to this article I didn’t know regarding all her contributions to the music industry and I am really glad to have read this article from you as it got me researching extensively regarding them. I love Moog synthesizers and all the contribution of Bob Moog and his company to the music industry. If it weren’t for him and other synthesizer innovators of the time we would not be where we are today in analog and digital sound synthesis. I agree with you completely that it is because of open-minded musicians and early adopters such as Wendy, Maurice Jarre (French composer), Paul Beaver and Kraftwerk the popularity of electronic music would not have reached where it is today. I especially like her work in the movie “A Clockwork Orange” as it really suits well for the story line. For your reference I have posted a link to a post in the Moog forum with a list of early film composers that adopted Moog products below if your interested.


I would also like to add that it was the published papers by German Engineer Harald Bode that all the synthesizer designs designed by Bob Moog and Donald Buchla were based on.

http://moogmusic.cn/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9742

Original article by Isaac Lynn available here.

Autechre

Autechre is the experimental music amalgamation of the duo Rob Brown and Sean Booth. The two musical geniuses are natives of Rochdale, Greater Manchester and met during their involvement in the Manchester Graffiti scene in 1987. During that time they were trading mix tapes of electro and hip-hop music, after which they eventually created their own compositions with equipment they purchased such as the Roland TR-606 drum machine and the Casio SK-1 Sampler. It is known that Lego Feet on Skam Records was their first release ever which they released through another alias followed by “Cavity Job” a single in 1991, released on Hardcore Records with the name Autechre, a name that finally stuck with them. Following the success of their release with Hardcore Records, they were soon contenders on the famous label Warp Records known for publishing eclectic electronic fusion music as IDM (Intelligent Dance Music). They released two more tracks on the Warp Records Compilation Artificial Intelligence, which became a series of albums published by Warp Records showcasing artists pushing the boundaries of electronic music.

Their long awaited debut album, Incunabula was released in 1993 on Warp Records, which surprisingly reached the top of the UK Indie Charts. This album would play an important role in setting their signature sound of melodically tuned rhythmical percussion parts, which would eventually start a trend in the electronic music scene. The following year they released Amber an ambient album that featured a more soothing melodic approach to the story telling. The same year they also released an EP known as Anti, which became a smart protest against the Rave act that was established the same year. The criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994 would prohibit raves defined as any gathering that consisted more than nine people where music being played consisted of “sounds wholly or predominantly characterized by the emission of a succession of repetitive beats”. In this EP, Rob and Booth employed a smart musical arrangement where no bar had an identical set of beats as a symbolic gesture to overcome the laws stated in the Rave act. They even advised DJs to have their lawyers present when playing the record in case they suffered any harassment from the police.

Over the following releases Autechre continued to push the bar behind electronic music. Their music continually implemented the most cutting edge technologies of synthesis, samplers and drum machines, which always left electronic music innovators in awe. They would eventually become the most esteemed artists of the Warp Records roster inspiring a wealth of new artists such as Amon Tobin, eDit, Squarepusher, Badun, Rumpistol and others emerging, aspiring to make groundbreaking experimental music. They were definitely the prime trendsetters that shaped the sound of electronic dance music today with musical ideas and production techniques now exploited within Pop music. Along with the others from the Warp records roster, they have permanently shaped the sound of electronic music giving the freedom for upcoming artists and composers to think out of the box when expressing their musical ideas.

Electronic Music Entry - Kraftwerk

Ralf Hutter and Florian Schneider formed Kraftwerk, the highly influential electronic music group, in Dusseldorf Germany during 1970. The two visionaries met as students at the Robert Schumann Hochschule, a college for university level music studies in Dusseldorf. During their time there, they heavily participated in the german experimental music scene, which was nicknamed “Krautrock” by the British Press. During that time, a number of bands such as Can, Amon Duul II, Cluster, Faust and Tangerine Dream were experimenting with synthesized sounds in abstract and minimalistic songwriting styles but Kraftwerk is considered the most influential band out of them all. Their sound consisted of rhythmically synthesized melodies and electronic beat driven material with heavy use of vocoders on the vocal parts. They were also one of the first bands to use computer generated speech software for vocal lines and their resulting work is now considered the precursor to the countless variations of electronic music today.

The selftitled debut album by Kraftwerk was released in 1970 and is characterized with a rock edge to the song writing. It was produced by Conny Plank and paved the way to their popularity with the albums to follow such as Kraftwerk 2 (1972), Ralf und Florian (1973), Autobahn (1974), Exceller 8 (1975), Radio-Activity (1975), Trans-Europe Express (1977), The Man-Machine (1978), Computer World (1981) and others. Today countless critics consider Autobahn a milestone in electronic music history, as it was the first of the concept electronic music albums to emerge during the time. The album consisted of both electronic and organic instruments such as violins; flutes and guitars, while featuring both treated and untreated vocals. They used famous synthesizers such as the MiniMoog, ARP Odyssey, EMS Synthi AKS and other drum machines to implement their signature sound within the album. The lyrical content within the album is written in the context of the high-speed roadways of Germany. It describes the experience of travelling through the German landscape, on the route A 555 from Koln to Bonn, which was the first Autobahn ever. The successive albums Radio-Activity and Trans-Europe Express also featured such themed musical content. The albums suffered a rather mediocre success during their time but it did not stop Kraftwerk from continuing to experiment with such abstract musical writing incorporating drum machines, vocoders and synthesizers. In May 1981 they released the album Computer World on EMI Records, which featured Texas Instruments Language Translator software to generate vocal lines within the album. Their single ‘Computer Love’ would eventually top the UK Charts making it Kraftwerk’s most successfully selling record. With the resulting success Kraftwerk’s live shows would result in more complicated electronic music setups and would feature extensive visuals in the form of slides, robotic mannequins and films playing as a backdrop to their performance.

In my opinion, I find Kraftwerk’s musical imprint in the world a milestone in electronic music today. Without such brave endeavors upstream by innovators such as Kraftwerk, the bar for electronic musical technologies would not have been pushed to what it is today by artists such as Chemical Brothers, Richie Hawtin (Plastikman), Fatboy Slim, Autechre, Squarepusher, Aphex Twin, Amon Tobin and others to follow. This retro playful and industrial electronic sound has inspired countless musicians and myself to push the abstract and musical nature of electronic music today. There are often many close-minded musicians that don’t see the impact of electronic instruments in music, but to say the least it has become the most successful form of musical expression in the charts today and I feel that the masses and statistics speak for themselves.

Revolver Podcast - Reposted

I have had to re-post this to blogger as it did not successfully embed the previous time with the inbuilt video function within the blogger tool. Maybe it had to do with some codec reasons which seemed like it initially worked.

I have now uploaded the video to YouTube and embedded it that way.

Marvin Gaye’s What’s Going On

Marvin Gaye was born on April 2^nd 1939 in Washington, D.C and was one of the key figures in evolving the musical genres R&B, Soul, Doo-wop and funk. The multi-talented singer, songwriter, composer, producer and instrumentalist was an expert at playing keyboards, drums, percussion, clavinet, synthesizers and piano. He first started his career as a member in the doo-wop group known as The Moonglows and moved on to create a grand solo-career for himself in a label called Tamla, a subsidiary of Motown Records. In the 1960s he was known as “The Prince of Motown” and “The Prince of Soul” because of hits such as “Ain’t that peculiar” and “I heard it through the grapevine”.

What’s Going On; the eleventh album of Marvin Gaye was released on May 21^st, 1971. It was an album solely produced and credited to Marvin Gaye and was also the first time the extremely talented session musicians from Motown records known as the Funk Brothers were given credit on a studio album. There was a lot of controversy and politics surrounding the release of this album between Motown records producer-owner Berry Gordy and Marvin Gaye, as Motown would try to heavily control the artistic ideas of their artists. Berry would constantly try to push Marvin towards righting more Rhythm and Blues oriented songs while Marvin refused to compromise, predominantly writing jazz and funk-oriented numbers. Marvin would time and time again prove to Berry and the label that his songs and ideas were nothing but Chart toppers and so was the case with What’s Going On as well. The album was written in the perspective of a war hero returning from the Vietnam War, to find nothing but injustice, suffering and hatred. Following the album release politics between Berry and Marvin, the album topped the Billboard Pop charts for over a year and sold over 2-million copies by the end of 1972. Critics around the world have noted it to be one of the landmarks in Pop Recording history and the album currently occupies itself in the 6^th place of Rolling Stone Magazine’s 500 greatest albums of all time.

The album content of What’s Going On is heavily surround by politics, poverty, political corruption, environmentalism, drug abuse and the Vietnam War. Critics regarded it during the time as a trendsetter due to the thematic approach to song composition. While most of Motown and Marvin’s material were revolving around themes of love, romanticism, eroticism and sexuality it was surprise for fans and critics as such. It was the first of the soul recordings during its time to present a new topic, which made it stand apart from most recordings in the genre during that time. While most people know Marvin for his Grammy Award-winning hit ‘Sexual healing’ from his album ‘Midnight Love’, it was Marvin’s title song of the album ‘What’s Going On’ that set him apart from most Soul singers during our times.

I have never been a great fan of Marvin Gaye until recent times as it was not material that I reached out to until recently. I do like a lot of the off springs of funk music             but the musical writing style within Soul music never appealed to me. I always enjoyed a more anarchist, experimental musical expression that broke a lot of rules behind song structures and composition but I do have to admit that Marvin is a phenomenal classical composer innovating the musical ideas found in the genres of Funk, Soul and R&B. I have learnt that he is quite the “Player” with the ladies and has an amazing 3-Octave voice. I am however now learning a lot from listening to his accolades and learning quite a bit about funk and the culture surrounding it as it didn’t make a large impact in India, where I am originally from.

Peer Comment for Isaac Lynn MH2 Revolver Article

Hi Isaac,

I enjoyed reading your article of The Beatles' Revolver album. I like the flow of your writing and how you keep it concise. A few things to point out which you may or may not know are that the Beatles were originally a 5-piece rock group. It was after the departure of the band members Stuart Sutcliffe and Pete Best in 1961 that Ringo Star joined the group. It was after that they were known as the "Fab Four".

I didn't know that it was the creative use of leslie cabinets and tape loops was what enabled them to create the sound of the vocals in the song "Tomorrow Never Knows". I am glad you pointed it out in your article as it got me, on a little research binge.

Also i noticed a little typo in your article. You noted ADT as ADR. ADR is automated dialog replacement. I am sure this was a typo and not intentional. Watch out in the Future.

Great post and i look forward to reading other to follow.

Velvet Underground & Nico

The New York based American rock band, ‘The Velvet Underground’ was active during the period of 1964 to 1973. It consisted of the famous Lou Reed known as the “The King of New York” with band members John Cale, Sterling Morrison, and Maureen Tucker. During the band’s career and performance, Nico (Christa Paffgen) a German singer, songwriter, actor and model performed vocals on The Velvet Underground’s debut album. Though the album had minimal success during its time, it would be considered as the precursor to many genres such as punk rock, ambient, alt. rock and experimental music such as the Misfits, Brian Eno, REM and many other artists to follow for generation to come. As the band’s career progressed, producer Andy Warhol included Nico into the band’s roster for her experimental songwriting and vocal performances. In 1967 they released the album The Velvet Underground & Nico on Verve Records, which would be eventually owned by MGM Records.

Lou Reed was born on March 2^nd 1942 and is the guitarist, vocalist and songwriter behind the Velvet Underground. His offbeat songwriting ideas, though unpopular during the 1960s, would create a cult following over the years and create a grand solo career for him for generations to follow. John Cale the multi-talented instrumentalist and singer was the other key member behind The Velvet Underground. After his time with the band he created a solo-career for himself with over 30 Albums and his ideas would give birth to genres such as drone music, folk rock, experimental ambient, art rock and protopunk.

Andy Warhol, the producer behind The Velvet Underground & Nico was predominantly famous for his work as a painter, printmaker and filmmaker and is the key figure behind the art movement known as Pop art. As an avant-garde filmmaker and visionary producer who mingled in diverse social circles in Hollywood, he saw the musical product of The Velvet Underground as a way to mix art, music and film together. As the band’s experimental ideas were a great canvas for him as a producer, he exploited their ideas and visions of the band to bring them to a greater commercial success. He found the bands descriptive songs of topics such as drug abuse, alienation, prostitution, sadism, masochism and sexuality a way to portray a provocative image to society and culture of the time.

In my opinion it was a brave expressionistic movement during the 60s for such a band. As the band was resonating at a completely different audio and visual spectrum from other bands such as the Beatles and Beach Boys during the time of the psychedelic movement, it paved the way to modern experimentation in sound, art and visual ideas for the future generations. I find some of the ideas such as the intentional or unintentional dissonance in the voice of Nico not so pleasing at times and a bit overdone. I do however like the overall experimental nature of the album, as I am a big fan of avant-garde, out of the box, expressionistic art ideas whether it is in music or film. I am grateful for the vivid phenomenon that Andy Warhol, The Velvet Underground and Nico created as it has influenced so many generation of artists such as myself to break free from stereotypical ideas, artistic rules and social programming. It is due to such music that today we have more freedom as artists and inspires us to continue to push the bar in art technologies and expression.