The brothers gonna work it out..

This post has to start in the right place, and the right place for me is Glastonbury 2015.

Just watch this:

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2vyoel

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2vyos3

I saw nearly all of this set from the comfort of my sofa on the BBC at the first time of asking, and with the exception of the slightly laboured intro using The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" voiced by Junior Parker, Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons capture the interest of their often partisan yet mostly fickle and "there 'cos there's fuck all else on I wanna see" crowd. By the end, everyone is sold. The jaw-dropping light show alone is worth the admission price.

The thing about it is, The Chemical Brothers have managed to successfully weave themselves into the consciousness of most people - fans or not - over the last 28 years (yes, they formed in 1989) because they have created, adapted, evolved and tuned into popular culture over nearly 3 decades and allowed it to become part of the DNA of the music.

Credit in part has to go to my friend Matt who introduced me to them when realising I was showing an interest in Electronic music, after my dalliances with The Prodigy and Orbital (more of the Hartnoll brothers another time methinks).

Starting out as The Dust Brothers, they quickly became embroiled in a legal battle with a band who already possessed the name, and then in a beautifully convenient twist of fate debuted their first album as "Exit Planet Dust".

From the minute "Leave Home" pushes its way in through the aural door to the strains of "the brothers gonna work it out....." it grabs you. Taking such turns as deploying the beautiful vocal tones of Beth Orton on comedown track "Alive Alone" to the 3-track opus of "Three Little Birdies Down Beats", "Fuck Up Beats" and "Chemical Beats", the album shows a diversity yet logical cohesion that nobody else of that time working in Electronic music - more specifically acid house, techno and trip-hop as a mesh of styles - had shown the world.

Collaborations would be a big thing for TCB over their career and to be able to put the likes of Tim Burgess, Noel Gallagher, Richard Ashcroft and Willy Mason (to name but a few), they shrewdly were able to stay relevant and front and centre in the charts by tapping into the Indie Rock/Alternative artists of the time who themselves wanted to collaborate and spread their wings.

Bigger, bolder, brasher and more expansive - it hardly seemed possible! - sees 1997's "Dig Your Own Hole" firing its way into being with the belting opener of "Block Rockin' Beats", the album feels more like a DJ set and collected mix than before. My personal favourites are unstoppable pounder and title track "Dig Your Own Hole" the bass-driven "It Doesn't Matter", "Get Up On It Like This" and obligatory post-hedonism relaxer "Where Do I Begin", with Beth Orton yet again doing a beautiful turn. This and "Exit Planet Dust" are still absolutely up there with records that haven't aged badly at all and are essential listens for people that don't know early TCB.

Things then start to turn a little funny.

By the time 1999's "Surrender" arrived, TCB had achieved what they set out to do, and had become a universally appreciated, multi-level commercial accessible artist....even if some of that wasn't possibly what they first set out to do.

Be careful what you wish for?

The obvious tracks on the album to like are the Gallagher collaboration "Let Forever Be" and the mega-hit "Hey Boy Hey Girl" (complete with skeletons dancing on the altogether awkward we-don't-wanna-be-in-it-so-do-something-odd music video) but I personally revert back to things like "The Sunshine Underground", "Got Glint?" and the beautifully layered closer "Dream On" as they we perhaps less obvious in some ways and had a part of their original DNA woven into them alongside of experimentation that was happening.

"Surrender" isn't a front to back listen for me anymore for that reason and just because it's so clearly inferior against the first two. It is still like saying if the first two were Barcelona and Real Madrid, I am now 'forced' to regard PSG....so no bad thing.

2002's "Come With Us" suffers from a similar problem to "Surrender" but also contains some of the redeeming features of "Exit Planet Dust" and "Dig Your Own Hole", insomuch as whilst I can absolutely do without "Come With Us" and "It Began In Afrika", I am totally sucked into the middle section of the album ("Galaxy Bounce", "Hoops", the marvellous single "Star Guitar" and "My Elastic Eye") as well as closer and Richard Ashcroft sung "The Test". Actually, the tracks in between are also pretty belting too. Welcome back lads!

"Push The Button" was released in 2005 and allowed me to experience for the first time - and actually over a 2 year period - an album of TCB that I hated listening to from first to about 10th time of asking, but has massively grown on me since.

"Galvanize" still grates on me as an opening track (but I can see what they were trying to do) and it is quickly upstaged by Tim Burgess' soaring vocal on "The Boxer" and still manage to grab my attention with "Believe", "Hold Tight London" and "Come Inside". The truly awful "Left Right" should have been culled from the list during post-production and serves as a huge scar down the middle of the album. Luckily it is saved by the off-beat and energetic "Shake Break Bounce" and the totally fun "Marvo Ging". Phew, that was hard(er) work...

By 2007's "We Are The Night", TCB are clearly in a groove of a triumvirate crowd pleaser/appeal to our original base/push the boundaries and it is with this that I delightfully can see them through other eyes. If they had stayed as they were on "Exit" and "Dig" we would have tired of them, so bravo for bringing us the Emperor's New Clothes every few years, even if there's some braided gold trim or tarnished neon suede to contend with.

Back to "WATN". This album sounds like TCB having a bar brawl with a bunch of caftan wearing hippies, and coming off slightly worse for wear but still weirdly triumphant. The key question to pose here is how many "featuring" is too many?

After the drawling intro of "No Path To Follow" (Willy Mason), we slide into the psychedelic "We Are The Night", and nicely into "All Rights Reversed" (Klaxons...and to be honest it could've been on their album and penned by them totally).

"Saturate": by far my favourite track of TCB's career and the best thing about the Glastonbury set. It is literally the moment when the whole crowd collectively gets it, and it's got such a lovely bouncing synth, driving grind and rhythmic drum/cymbal pattern that it deserves its place atop the list for me. Genius. It also lifts this album closer to the first two. A bit.

"Do It Again" is the one for the masses, and does it well. It is infectious without being annoying. "The Salmon Dance" is the album's turd. Didn't they learn after the last time?! Luckily "Burst Generator" saves us somewhat before "A Modern Midnight Conversation" tumbles out of the dark like an 80's throwback stolen from the archives of lesser-known Electro-princes "Chromeo". Wonderful.

Willy is back for "Battle Scars" (meh), and we get a bit of Midlake for the not-altogether-unpalatable "The Pills Won't Help You Now" but again it seems like it could have been on their own album. It's a mish-mash and when it works it's good....it just happens to be one to skip tracks on again.

An inevitable part of loving an artist I guess is that want to be perfect in its aesthetic every time, but inevitably like any relationship it is erring (as to err is human) and TCB carry on being innovators without losing too much of themselves, cutely stepping to different sides and genres and people to get an insight of what it's like 'over there'. Does it always work? No. Should they stop? No. If they did they'd probably become like a latter-day Prodigy and nobody wants that as their output stagnated about a decade ago and hasn't (yet) fully drawn me back in. Read elsewhere for more on that.

No collaborators but another play with said aesthetic allows 2010's "Further" to take a different path somewhat. "Escape Velocity" soars and seems to meander endlessly on a wave of pounding beats..another of the live tracks that works. "Horse Power" is less accessible and gritty/angry but it draws you in on repeated listens, and "Swoon" is the standout track with its psychedelic backbone (I am poaching from AllMusic here) DOES sound like an Orbital track! Another album I can like without loving, and for sure grab 3-4 tracks off for a playlist.

5 years off seemed to have been somewhat of a tonic for Ed and Tom, as by the time 2015's "Born In The Echoes" arrives, you can hear a freshness return within the first 20 seconds of "Sometimes I Feel So Deserted". It's brash, bouncy, abrasive and danceable, as well as being a great one to get audiences clapping.

"Go" is the true pop song on this album, and it works so well it is uncanny. From the underlying bass to the vocals ably provided by Q-Tip - certainly improving on "Galvanize" - it's a great tune.

"Under Neon Lights" introduces St. Vincent to the equation perfectly, "EML Ritual" has a place on any dance floor in Ibiza, London or New York and its bumps and incessant squeaks make it very unique sounding.

"I'll See You There" literally sounds like it was culled from "Exit Planet Dust" (not in a bad way), "Let's Bang" is dirty techno from the mid-1990's, "Reflexion" is a "Surrender" track that should've been in favour of a ho-hum number that made it, and so it goes on.

At its best it is an eclectic mix of past nods and future envelope pushing, and at its worst it loses me with a touch of laziness and poor track ordering...mostly at the back of the album ("Let Us Build A City is a slowed-down "Block Rockin' Beats" sucked of all its OOMPH).

I am now coming full circle back to Glastonbury 2015, as I have never seen TCB live (despite my more-than-two-decades love-in with them). It has just never fallen into place. They've been at Reading Festival the years I didn't go. Tours sold out so quick I didn't get a look in. I am confident one day soon I will see them, as the BBC captured the mood and tone of their performance so well that it felt like I WAS there. I know a friend who actually was, and he said it was by far the best thing about Glasto that year, and he hadn't taken a single pill or been paid to say that....with the slew of amazing artists that grace the Worthy Farm stages every year it is high praise indeed.

And so I find myself quietly hopeful that whatever happens in the future, The Chemical Brothers will continue to surprise me with their innovative style, collaborations, quality production and jaw-dropping live sets. It is slightly ironic that Electronic music attracts many nerds to its fold and Ed and Tom are the epitome of the prototypical nerd: hiding behind the decks, mixers and samplers and creating art without caring what they look like or what people really think...as long as they have fun.

Image is nothing. Music is everything.

Badger x