Swooning About

It's been nearly 20 years since Ed Simons and Tom Rowlands began DJing together at Manchester's Naked Under Leather pub as The 237 Turbo Nutters.

Little known - or probably liked - back then, their success since has encouraged countless bedroom DJs and nerdy tech-heads to follow their dreams. Since their humble beginnings The Chemical Brothers have climbed the highest echelons of the music industry to become the ultimate champions of evolving, exciting and accessible electronic music.

Last in Australia in 2008 to headline the Future Music Festival, Simons and Rowlands threw Australian fans into a frenzy last month when they announced their three-date 2011 Australian tour. With their seventh studio album - the aptly-named 'Further' - currently attracting rave reviews, an exciting new live show being readied and a promise to take fans further than ever before, it's expected all three dates will sell out; not bad for a pair of London geeks now approaching their 40s.

'Swoon' - the first single from 'Further' - demonstrates that, 20 years on from their Manchester study days, Simons and Rowlands continue to push the proverbial musical envelope. The new album is a breath of fresh air, having been labeled an ‘eight track masterpiece of modern psychedelia’. For the first time Simons and Rowlands have eschewed vocalists in favour of melody and ‘found vocal sounds’ and the result is an LP that is as much a nod to the future as it is a celebration of where The Chemical Brothers have come from.

It all seems a long time since their modest beginnings and 'Song To The Siren', the pair's first single to make waves in the early 1990s. Originally rejected by dance labels for its low beat-per-minute tempo, the then pioneering  - and recently revived - house label Junior Boys Own saw its appeal. JBO's Andrew Weatherall hammered it in his sets and immediately signed the single - and the duo - to the label. The hype had begun.

As The Dust Brothers, Simons and Rowlands were soon packing out the Heavenly Sunday Social Club event at London's Albany pub, which then drew high-profile visitors like Tim Bugess and Noel Gallagher. Offers to remix cuts by the Manic Street Preachers, The Prodigy and Primal Scream followed in 1994 before Simons and Rowlands toured the US for the first time, sharing the bill with the likes of Orbital and Underworld.

In hindsight, it's easy to see the long-term impact the duo would have given the strength of their debut album, 1995's 'Exit Planet Dust'. A threat of legal action by the original Dust Brothers forced Simons and Rowlands to drop the name in favour of The Chemical Brothers, but despite the adoption of a new moniker and the disruption it might have caused, the LP dropped like a bomb on the masses, entering the UK charts at number nine and subsequently going gold.

It's no exaggeration to say that over the course of their seven studio albums, the Chems - alongside contemporaries including The Prodigy and Daft Punk - have been responsible for dragging electronic music into the mainstream. While many electronic acts have long struggled with achieving mainstream radio play and chart success, Simons and Rowlands have managed to attract consistent support from radio and TV, helped in part by their habit of producing adventurous and downright weird ('Salmon Dance' or 'Believe' anyone?) video clips. Furthermore, the list of collaborators who have worked with Simons and Rowlands spans multiple genres and has exposed their music to a whole new legion of fans. Beth Orton, The Flaming Lips, Midlake, The Magic Numbers and Klaxons are just a few notable names who have bunkered down in the studio with Simons and Rowlands.

Every Chems album has its gems and enduring singles. 'Exit Planet Dust' saw 'Chemical Beats' unleashed on the masses, while 1997's ‘Dig Your Own Hole’ brought arguably the most successful Chems single - the timeless and UK #1 smash 'Block Rockin' Beats' - to dancefloors around the world. 1999's 'Surrender' had more than its fair share of hits. From the opening 'Music: Response' to the hyped collaboration with Oasis's Noel Gallagher on 'How Does It Feel' to the thrilling 'Hey Boy Hey Girl', this third LP saw Simons and Rowlands pursue a more big room sound, and one that saw their sometime reputation as crossover artists gain more steam.

2004's 'Push The Button' continued this evolution, but it still contained that exciting pulse and excitement that the Chems should have a patent on. 'Galvanise' saw the duo team up with Q-Tip for mid-tempo groove of massive proportions, while 'Believe' harped back to the earlier days, employing warbling synths and acid house influences. Such was the album's success that Simons and Rowlands were awarded their first Grammy in 2006 for Best Electronic/ Dance Recording, beating competition by the likes Fatboy Slim, Kraftwerk and Daft Punk.

Despite 2007's 'We Are The Night' attracting a ho-hum response from some critics, the album nevertheless saw Simons and Rowlands win their second Grammy in the same category and singles 'Do It Again' and 'The Salmon Dance' were notable for their wide airplay across underground and mainstream media.

In a first - and consistent with the Chems' focus on their electrifying live performances, 'Further' has been put together in the same way the duo would usually program a live set. As Rowlands explains, this approach is set to take the live show to an entire new level.

“We were very aware when we were programming the record of how it would lock together,” he says.

“We wanted there to be something different about this record, not just in how it sounded. From the off, we had the idea that the record had to slot together as we knew we wanted to initially present it live as a complete body of work.

“Electronic music can be absorbing without you ever having heard it before, maybe that's its evolution through clubs into the live arena but it definitely attracts very open-minded people. We want ‘Further’ to have the same transcendent effects as the rest of our music on people hearing it.”

'Further' is out now; The Chemical Brothers play the Riverstage on Friday March 4, 2011.