FOR THAT BEAUTIFUL FEELING

As Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands approach their 35th anniversary as The Chemical Brothers, the pioneering electronic duo discuss their tenth record

- Ben Jolley

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS — aka Manchester-based electronic pioneers Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands — had a clear vision in mind when they started work on their tenth album, For That Beautiful Feeling, the winner of The Album Award, supported by Brooklands Studio. “We really wanted to embrace the idea of speaking very directly through music, because sometimes it’s obscured quite a lot and scared of a big emotion,” says Rowlands, as he and Simons speak to Rolling Stone UK backstage before their Birmingham Arena show.

Having said that, the pair didn’t consciously intend to channel a particular set of ideas. Instead, they came naturally because of the time in which the record was made — during the first Covid-19 lockdown. Simons describes that period as “a strange time”. “Whether it was the fear that came up, the pause in people’s lives, or the loss, it’s in there somewhere,” he says of the songs that resulted from it.

Although the pair didn’t set out to reflect that period in their music, a variety of emotions runs through many of the album’s tracks. While Simons recognises that everyone had vastly different experiences of lockdown, there was one shared feeling: “missing the flow of life”. He thinks that “coming back into a relationship with your life and with other people as it was” is something that people are still getting to grips with, even now. While this isn’t a concept, he says that denying such influences, albeit subconscious ones, would be “strange and soulless”.