Chemical Brothers Seek 'Emotional Attachment' to New Album

This week marks the release of the Chemical Brothers' seventh album, 'Further,' and with that a few notable changes have been made. Gone are the numerous name-brand guest vocalists that tend to line their tracks, although that didn't stop them collaborating this time around. Along with eight tracks that span just over 50 minutes, each song has an accompanying video produced by Adam Smith and Marcus Lyall, the Chemical Brothers' longtime live visual collaborators.

"It's just a small idea, but it certainly changed how we put music together, how we sequenced," the Chemical Brothers' Ed Simons tells Spinner. "Previously, we'd finish the album and we'd ask them to come up with visual ideas into what we already had. But to start the process from the moment when we started making the music was pretty interesting."

In doing so, the Chemical Brothers and Astralwerks have made a variety of different formats available that embrace the accompanying visuals: a standard DVD/CD combo as well as an extensive iTunes pass, where you can get a 20-minute "making of" documentary, a load of still photography, the eight videos and two bonus cuts, 'Don't Think' and 'Pourquoi.'

Because the Chemical Brothers, Smith and Lyall started out working on this as the music was unfolding, Simons says it took on a different scope than normal video production. "Very far away from having a video made, where you have one eye on the marketing plan, this was just another artistic collaboration," Simons says. "It doesn't mean that the videos or what Adam made are less or more artistic than anything else -- it's just something cool to do. We've always wanted to make albums and one of the conversations we had was that people weren't really immersing themselves in music."

It's that immersion that Simons is quite keen on; as he's noticed over the years, the way people develop a relationship with music has fundamentally changed and the investment has dwindled. "I've been in front on the TV or get music pinged to me through AIM, so I listen to it a bit on the computer speakers -- that's the beginning and end of my emotional relationship with the music," he says "I think I've heard it. We didn't want people to experience our music like that. We wanted to make a situation where people would be immersed in the nuances and emotional texture of our music."