British electronic duo the Chemical Brothers head in a new direction on "The Golden Path," a song they recently recorded with help from Oklahoma-based rock trio the Flaming Lips.
"Wayne Coyne is really infectious," says Chemical Brother Ed Simons. "He makes you feel really excited about the music. What he's done for us, the words, the song he's grafted on to our music, it's the next level of Chemical Brothers music -- it's just really good."
The new tune, which Simons' partner Tom Rowlands calls "psychedelic, up-tempo and emotional wide-screen," will be included on the Chems' upcoming CD/DVD career retrospective The Singles: 1993-03, due in September. According to Simons, the collection also features some of the dance duo's most memorable tracks: "Song to the Siren," "Block Rockin' Beats," "Setting Sun," "Hey Boy Hey Girl," "Out of Control," "Star Guitar" and "Leave Home." One other new track, so far without a title, features Canadian rapper K-Os.
"The two new pieces of music we've made are easily amongst the two best pieces of music we've ever made," says Rowlands. "They're so different, but they seem to, in different ways, bring together lots of the ideas that we've had over the last ten years."
The initial pressing of the collection will also feature a bonus disc of rarities, live tracks and other odds and ends. The band is taking suggestions from fans for the CDs track listing at thechemicalbrothers.com.
Working on the new tracks also gave the Chems a host of new ideas for their fifth album, due out sometime next year. "We're having a real creative burst at the moment and we're really making lots of music," Rowlands says. "This feels like a sort of stepping stone to our next album, not the retrospective kind of thing, but sort of a full stop at the end of a sentence, new paragraph, next record."
The Chemical Brothers will return to the U.S. for some DJ dates this fall. "When we play live," says Simons, "it's almost like a greatest hits selection . . . We have a pool of about twenty Chemical Brothers tracks that we choose to play every night, and a lot of them are the hits. So it seemed odd to play a tour based around the singles. DJing seemed like a simpler way of appearing and representing."
JOLIE LASH
(June 6, 2003)
