825 Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole (1997)

 825 Chemical Brothers - Dig Your Own Hole (1997)

Studio Album - Big Beat




About the Act:

The Chemical Brothers are a couple of guys who started out as night club DJs and ended up making/mixing their own tracks for their DJ sets. They do live sets, recordings and they are in demand as remixers.


About the Album:

This was the second album by the Chemical Brothers. It did quite well.


My History with this Album:

None. I have heard Chemical Brothers tracks before and I know Block Rockin' Beats quite well.


Review:

This is most definitely music to rave to. I have never raved. I have never dropped and E and thrown shapes all night long. I've only ever once been in a night club, and it was playing 70s/80s pop classics, not this kind of stuff. This is music that is designed for night club play, and as such is somewhat out of place in my headphones as I sit in a comfy chair tapping on my laptop. I imagine this is quite good to dance to, but please excuse me if I don't test that out.  As I am writing this I am forming a decision that this series of reviews is definitely of albums, and so I will review it in that context, as an album to listen to.

Despite my ravelessness I am not a stranger to electronica, trance, ambient and similar stuff. This is not actually outside my comfort zone particularly. I wouldn't call myself an expert, or even a connoisseur, but as is being repeatedly said in my ears right now "It doesn't matter".

Let's do the descriptive thing. This stretches the definition of music somewhat, in that there are large parts with little in the way of tonal elements. What there is is beats, and noises. Like a lot of music (yes I am going to call it music, regardless) of this type, it is about repetition. The same beat over and over, with other elements coming in and going out, like driving down a motorway. The beat is the road, and the other elements are the cars around you that come and go, quite slowly. Everything is going fast, but the change is slow. These sounds include musical elements, sometimes basslines, snatches of speech and sound effects, and occasionally singing. Again, like a lot of this kind of stuff is locked into multiples of 4 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars. In fact it has a lot in common with ambient music, in that change is generally slow, but unlike ambient, the actual elements are highly energetic. There is a skill to this, not only in choosing the sounds to go in, but at controlling the rate of change. This is music that is not really designed for listening to in a focused way, and it is best appreciated when doing other things, like driving down a motorway.

I guess that could describe a lot of electronica, there is a certain sound to it that really does set it apart from other things. One is a tendency to the noisy, lots of stuff is pushed until it is slightly distorted. The beats in particular are fat-sounding. There is also the occasional use of samples that are very short and played so fast that the rhythm of it being replayed over and over is so fast it becomes a note in its own right. This seems to be a particular chemical brothers thing.

So do I like it?  Actually, yes. It impressed me. I was not that taken with The Chemical Brothers when I first heard them, but this album has picked me up and taken me along with it. It is varied enough to be interesting, and well-crafted. At times it even verges on funky, which is a good thing in my book. It's not profound, but it is musically satisfying to listen to. Despite the music being mostly out of the dance context, it works well as an album. It's good working music. It's good washing up music. To be honest it would be quite good sitting in the sun music. It would not be good music to have on in the car when in a traffic jam, because it's not calming, it's energising. It would make good running music, and I'm sure it makes good dance music.


7.9/10



Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/0FjHy5dCyVROqDUl6f2VTK

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLvsYXqtYjMYfTUcEPB3lr1NlTC4Nbk9Uz

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dig_Your_Own_Hole



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