Dance
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Sometimes, in the middle of a set, Fatboy Slim steps back from the decks — barefoot, because he doesn’t play with shoes on — and takes a moment.
“I look at the crowd and feel the atmosphere and the evening and take a little mental snapshot,” the producer born Norman Cook tells Billboard over Zoom from his home office in Brighton Beach, U.K. “Maybe everyone’s like ‘What the hell’s he doing? Is he having some sort of major panic attack?’ But it’s a good thing.’”
These instances are Cook consciously absorbing his work and his life and the general fun and power of what he does. It’s a habit cultivated amidst a four-decade career in which some moments have been lost in a haze of partying (Cook marked 14 years of sobriety this past March). As of late, there’s been a lot of to absorb.
A global star for decades now, Cook, 60, has been touring heavily, hitting Europe, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. and beyond this year. In 2022, he celebrated the 20-year anniversary of his first Big Beach Boutique event — which in 2002 drew 250,000 people to the beach in Cook’s hometown of Brighton — and also launched his own festival, All Back to Minehead. That event returns to Minehead, U.K. this November.
Ahead of that, Cook is also playing a rare Los Angeles set this Saturday (Sept. 23), headlining downtown L.A.’s Pershing Square for a show produced by L.A. promoter Framework and featuring support from DJ Holographic and Francis Mercier.
The party continues next month, with the 25-year anniversary of Fatboy Slim’s massive 1998 LP You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby. One of the definitive albums of the big beat era, the project contained the crossover classics “The Rockafeller Skank” and “Praise You” and hit No. 34 on the Billboard 200 in May of 1999. In all, the Fatboy Slim catalog has aggregated 390 million on demand streams in the U.S., according to Luminate.
Funny, deep and affable over Zoom, Cook compares the heights of this album to “what being on top of a wave must feel like.” Here, he reflects on that period, shares what he’s learned from David Byrne (his collaborator on the currently running Broadway show Here Lies Love), and reflects on a forgotten night out with Cher.
1. Where are you in the world right now, and what’s the setting like?
I am on Brighton Beach. We’re experiencing a heat wave, which is very un-British. But it’s very British to have heat waves at the wrong time. It’s like, 32 degrees [90 degrees Fahrenheit] here.
2. What is the first album or piece of music you bought for yourself, and what was the medium?
The first album I ever bought was a cassette of Black and Blue by The Rolling Stones. That’s the first time I could afford to buy an actual real pre-recorded cassette. It was very groundbreaking, because it was the first time I got into production.
There’s a tune on on it called “Fool to Cry.” It’s a really beautiful song, and it started with this noise, and I became obsessed with finding out what this noise was, because it wasn’t a guitar. Then someone said, ‘Oh, it’s a Fender Rhodes played through a chorus.” That was the first time I asked, “How do you make that noise?” I’ve spent the rest of my career asking that same question. I’m a little bit more informed these days.
3. What did your parents do for a living when you were a kid, and what did they think of what you’ve done and do now?
My dad worked for a glass company, but he actually launched bottle banks. He launched recycling in England. It wasn’t his idea. He just got landed with that job. So he introduced the idea of bottle banks and glass recycling to the country and got the MBE for it, which is quite cool. My mum was a teacher.
My mum is very, very proud of me and always loved music and my capacity to enjoy and perform music. My dad, not so much. He was a negative influence, because he told me that pop music is rubbish and “you want to get yourself a proper job.” So I had kind of good cop, bad cop. One person telling me it was a terrible thing to do, which made me want to do it more. And then another person telling me that was a really great thing to do, which made me want to do it more.
4. What is the first non-gear thing you bought for yourself when you started making money as an artist?
Non-gear? Oh, right. Equipment you mean. Gear means something else in England. [laughs] Right. The first thing I bought was a car that worked and got you from A to B. I was the only one in the band with a car. It was my first luxury. It was a Chrysler Alpine.
5. If you had to recommend one album for someone looking to get into dance music, what would you give them?
I would say, just to not be obvious, Duck Rock by Malcolm McLaren. Malcolm McLaren was the manager of the Sex Pistols, okay. And he was like a svengali character and after the Sex Pistols split up, he was very much an arbiter of what was going on. He was working in New York and picked up on hip-hop really early, got invited to these the Bronx parties with Bambaata and everyone. And so he made this album called Duck Rock, and it had DJs and scratching and rapping on it. He also went to South Africa and worked with a lot of South African musicians and then he glued them on to the tunes he made with the DJs and with rappers, and then he did a song about double dutch skipping. It was like a snapshot of everything that interesting that was going on in the world of culture.
The cover was done by Keith Haring, and that’s the first time I’d ever seen Keith Haring’s work, and so that introduced me to the world of art and opened my eyes to the idea of sampling things from around the world and bringing them together and making dance music.
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6. What’s the last song you listened to?
The last song I listened to, let me have a look… [he looks into his computer] .. a tune called “Beginners” by Angelo Ferreri. Just a tune for my sets. Didn’t listen to it for pleasure, though. It kind of is a pleasure, but it was like a work thing. Do you want to hear a bit of it?
Sure! [we listen]
So that’s why I spend most of my days doing, just trolling the internet looking for songs to go into my DJ sets… I’ll be honest, most of them I get sent. I’m kind of seen as an influential DJ, and so record companies send me stuff. I get about 30 emails a day with people sending me the new tunes, but I make it a point to give everyone at least five seconds listen. Most of them I dislike. Like, “Okay, that’s drum and bass.” “Okay, that’s EDM.” But if I get one new good tune a week… that’s why I get so excited when I find one I really like.
7. I understand you’re an art collector. What’s your collection like?
It’s expanding rapidly at the moment. It started with Keith Haring. Basically I dug what he did on the Malcolm McLaren album, and then when I travelled being in a band, first place we went to Amsterdam, and first show I saw was a museum with a Keith Haring exhibition. I’m like, “That’s the dude that did the album cover,” so I went, and it just blew me away. It must have been about 1985.
So I started collecting Keith Haring, and then I was really into mainly street art. I’ve always collected it, but over the years as I’ve diversified a bit I’ve started working with artists. I love it, because I’m a complete fanboy with artists. With other musicians, we’ll talk shop, and the magic is somehow lost because I know how they make the records. But with artists it’s like, “How do you do that? How do you come up with ideas?”
8. You’re doing your own festival, All Back to Minehead, in the U.K. in November. You obviously play around the world and see every type of event. What are you doing to make this one uniquely yours?
Obviously I curate all the acts and entertainment. But the main two things for me are that the venue is a classic British holiday camp. In the ’50s and ’60s, that was what English people did, we went to holiday camps. They’re kind of chalets — some of them are like borderline army barracks… There’s this whole culture about it. It’s where The Beatles cut their teeth, and all the bands used to go and play there. It’s a very British institution. A few of these holiday camps still exist, and they’re kind of [struggling], because now everybody can afford to go off to Ibiza and Spain.
The other thing is that the only thing uniting [the festival] is people who like my taste in music and my sense of humor. It’s all ages, very strange cross section of society, but then you put 5,000 of them in a little village where we all live together for a weekend, and it’s hilarious. It’s like the British version of Burning Man, only it’s not sunny or very picturesque. It’s quite down and everybody dresses quite stupid and we don’t think we’re very cool. But there is that feeling of community. I did it for the first time last year and didn’t know if it would work, and it just absolutely knocked my socks off how everybody got involved.
9. Next month is the 25-year anniversary of You’ve Come a Long Way, Baby. What are your strongest memories of the release of the time the album was released, and its insane success?
The main thing I remember is just the momentum of it all. I’m not a surfer, but I can imagine it was what being on top of a wave must feel like. There’s something behind you driving it along, and all you can do is try and stay on and ride it with a bit of style, because it’s going there anyway.
Musically, the whole big beat thing, everybody wanted a piece of us, because we were doing something different. I’d just gotten married to the most famous TV presenter in England, so we’d become the celebrity couple. All of these things were driving it along. We were just having a lot of fun trying to stay on and throw a few shapes before the wave crested.
10. Are you satisfied with how you did on that wave?
I’m still alive — which wasn’t a given, considering some of my behavior at the time. I survived it. I rode it to the shore, but I didn’t get on the next one.
11. By choice?
Yeah. It did freak me out somewhat. Because by that point, I’d already been in the music business for 10 or 15 years, so it wasn’t my first rodeo. But this just engulfs your whole life, and when you’ve got photographers following you wherever you go, and if you fart in the wrong place you end up on the front page of the newspapers, it was quite scary. It wasn’t quite what I was signed up for. You know I’ve always loved music, and I wanted to be a success and be appreciated for the music I made. But I never signed up for being famous. So I kind of took my foot off the gas, deliberately a bit — which, with the benefit of hindsight, 25 years later, here I stand. I still have a career, and I still have my health. So I think I did all right.
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12. Do you see your career ever coming to a close? Is there a retirement plan, or does it just go in perpetuity?
No, I tried retirement during lockdown. I had an enforced retirement for a year. Didn’t agree with me at all. I think I’ve gotten to a point now where I can probably ride this one out until I drop. In some shape or form I think they’ll always be a place for me to be doing something. As long as I’m enjoying it and other people are still enjoying it, I don’t see any reason to stop.
13. Or even slowing down?
I mean, I don’t do it at the same pace I used to. I turned 60 this year. I can’t do the stupid things I used to, but I’m quite happy to play until I drop. Athletes have to retire early, boy bands have to retire early, but with DJs, it’s not about our looks or our fitness or anything like that. We can go gray and bald and fat, because we were never supposed to be pinups anyway.
14. You mentioned the forced retirement of the pandemic. I imagine the disparity between being onstage, then just being in the silence and quiet of your house, and how that gulf is so wide. What was that time like for you?
I’m all right with that. The thing I couldn’t deal with is not having an outlet for my joy of music, because my love of music involves sharing it with other people. If I hear a new tune, I’ve got to play it with someone. Like a tree falling in the forest, and no one hearing it — if I don’t share these tunes with people, for me, they don’t have a life. That’s what I noticed during lockdown. That’s why I did a weekly podcast, because I still had to play these tunes to people.
Obviously, I don’t want to live my whole life in that glamorous travel world, so I love coming home and doing the school run and being a quiet dad. But all the while I’m stoking the fire, getting tunes ready for the next weekend.
15. You’ve been touring around the world this year, Europe, all over the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and a few days in the U.S. Is there anything special about American audiences?
I’m always aware of the history. I played Chicago the other weekend, and just being in Chicago, where it all happened… I was in New York doing this show that I did with David Byrne, and Todd Terry turned up to the musical. To some of the Broadway producers, I was like, “F–king Todd Terry is here!” And they were like, “Who’s Todd Terry?”
I’m like, “God, he invented house music right under your noses 30 or 40 years ago.” In England he’s revered as God because of what he did, but he kind of had to come to Europe to get famous. So I’m very aware of going back to where things started, Detroit or Chicago or New York, where the music was was made.
16. Say more about that?
I’ve kind of had a bit of a checkered history [in the U.S.] I first came around 25 years ago, and things were going really well in America. I was over there a lot. Then EDM happened, and I didn’t want to be on that wave, so I let things slip in America. I probably don’t travel enough to America. There’s tons of stuff going on in Brazil and Argentina and Australia and Japan. And so yeah, America got a bit forgotten — which I do apologize for. But I like that I can come over and people are really not blown out, because they haven’t seen me for 10 years.
17. What’s been the proudest moment of your career thus far?
The gigs on Brighton Beach. I’ve had six enormous gigs on the beach in my hometown. It doesn’t get any much better than this, because I love the city that I live in. I’m very, very proud of it. And they seem to be proud of me. It’s a bit like a scene from the film, like the triumphant homecoming and local boy does good.
18. What’s the best business decision you’ve ever made?
Employing my manager. The first person I met who wasn’t my record company, in the music business, was a guy called Garry Blackburn. He was my plugger at first. That was 1985, and I’ve worked with him ever since. He’s only about six years older than me, but he’s like my dad. We’ve been through heaven and hell together. More heaven than hell, but he’s been there for me during the crunchy bits. He’s been really good for me, because he just allows me to do what I do and then translates that into business. I’m useless in business. I have no idea.
19. Maybe you just answered my next question, but who’s been your greatest mentor and what’s the best advice they ever gave you?
The person who’s most inspired me is David Byrne. He musically inspired me, then I worked with him writing this musical 15 or 20 years ago. Working with him really set me on a [path] of where I am today, doing other things outside music.
Look what he did: He started a record label and started putting out Brazilian music, then he does art things. He’s got such an inquisitive mind about everything, always asking, “How can we make it more fun?” I’ve just found him such an inspiration. He’s been the blueprint. After working with him, I looked at all the other things he’d done and said, “Well, that’s how you do longevity, by not being held back by, ‘I’ve got to make an album every three years and have hits.’
Once you’ve done enough albums to have hits and have a name, then it’s like, “Well, let’s flex some other muscles.” Let’s do an art project and other things in your life that interest you, let’s invite them into your life. If you’re respected enough, if your reputation is enough, then you get to hang out with other people and swap ideas and do things that aren’t necessarily just about having hit records. He does things that interest him, rather than just being on the hamster wheel.
20. What’s one piece of advice you’d give your younger self?
Apart from, “Try not to do that, or marry that” — you know, notable mistakes — I would say just try and savor and remember more of it. There are huge amounts of things I don’t remember from my partying days. Someone will say “What is Cher like?” and I’m like “I never met Cher,” and they’re like, “Yes you did, you spent an evening with her” and then they show me photos of me and Cher having a night out, and I’m like, “Oh my God.”
Someone said to me, when I got married, “Take time for the two of you to walk away from your guests for a couple of minutes and soak up the moment, because you want to remember your life.” That was really good advice — and it did work, because we remember that moment.
I just wish I’d done a bit more of that, rather than doing everything by instinct and adrenaline, that I’d sat back and took it all in, because I’ve had the most beautiful life. I’ve gotten to work my whole career in an industry I love, in and around music I love. Most people don’t get to do that. I’ve done some really excellent and excellently fulfilling things. I just wish I remembered all of them.
The seventh edition of Costa Rica’s Ocaso Festival will happen at the turn of the new year, Jan. 4-8, in Playa Lagarto, located in the country’s Pacific-facing Guanacaste region.
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The festival announced its phase one lineup on Tuesday (Sept. 19), with tech house phenom John Summit, underground leader Seth Troxler and techno force Sama’ Abdulhadi all on the bill.
The underground house and techno focused festival will also host a flurry of other globally known dance/electronic artists including 8Kays, Adam Ten, Brina Knauss, Cassian, Deer Jade, Hannah Wants, Hunter/Game, Julya Karma, Konstantin Sibold, Mano Le Tough, Mind Against, Mita Gami, Tini Gessler, Tony Y Not and Zombies In Miami.
Previous iterations of Ocaso have hosted artists including Solomun, Dixon, Âme, Michael Bibi, Maceo Plex, Adriatique, Jamie Jones, Bob Moses and Damian Lazarus.
The phase two festival will be released in the coming months. Tickets for Ocaso 2024 are available now and start at $259.
Moving to a new location in 2024, Ocaso will take place on a 200-acre beachfront ranch, The Bohemian Lagarto, offering overnight camping and beachside glamping options as well as hotel rooms. Shuttle service from the regional airport to the festival is available.
The environmentally-focused festival is plastic free and hosts beach cleanup events during the event. Playa Lagarto is also located roughly two hours from Santa Rosa National Park, where festivalgoers can explore tropical forests, surfing, bird watching and more.
Costa Rica is a relative hotspot for New Year’s-adjacent electronic music festivals, with Envision and BPM both also happening in the country each January.
When Floating Points was recording with Pharoah Sanders in the summer of 2019, he was moving quickly. Possibly too fast.
“I didn’t have very much time to work with Pharoah,” says the British producer born Sam Shepherd, “and so I felt this pressure to just constantly be delivering music.”
But Sanders — the legendary tenor saxophonist who rose to prominence in the ’60s playing with John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane and other greats while also distinguishing himself as a luminary of the spiritual jazz movement — put his foot on the metaphorical brakes during those 10 days making music at Sargent Recorders, a studio in Los Angeles’ Historic Filipinotown neighborhood.
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“He was just calming, slowing everything down,” Shepherd recalls. “He was like, ‘Let’s just listen to this,’ and we’d sit there and listen to the whole thing. And then we’d listen to it again, then again. Three hours would pass and we’d just be listening and listening.”
It wasn’t the speed at which Shepherd — an electronic musician accustomed to the pace of the internet — was used to working. Working with Sanders, more than 40 years Shepherd’s senior, felt like a throwback to the era when there was only so much recording tape available.
“We’d sit and listen,” Shepherd continues, “Then Pharoah would be like, ‘I’m just gonna go into the booth and play this phrase over this thing.’ He’d go in there having had listened to it for a few hours and just play something so succinct and meaningful. He knows it so well that he’s embodied it. It’s not like he’s searching while he’s playing, he’s done all that. He doesn’t need to search on his instrument, he’s done the searching within himself.”
This contemplative, unhurried workflow resulted in Promises, the 2021 collaborative album from Floating Points and Sanders, along with the London Symphony Orchestra. Clocking in at 46 minutes and composed of nine movements, Promises is leisurely, deep and often fairly mystic, with the Philharmonic adding moments of climactic grandeur and Sanders’ playing serving as the sonic and spiritual center, his signature tone offering moments of elegance and cacophony.
Released on Luaka Bop, the label founded by David Byrne in 1988, Promises earned wide and high-brow acclaim, getting glowing reviews from The New York Times, The New Yorker — who called it “a remarkably intimate experience — and earning a 9.0 rating from Pitchfork. The album spent three weeks on Top Albums Sales, where it reached No. 32 in April of 2021.
“It took me by surprise,” Shepherd says of this success. “We originally pressed very few vinyl copies, because we thought this was a relatively niche, jazz/classical crossover record. It connected more than we’d imagined. I’d say, ‘Pharoah, you know, people really like this record.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, yeah?’ And I’d be like, ‘No, people really like this record, Pharoah.’”
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As the pandemic waned, the two artists — Shepherd in the U.K. and Sanders in Los Angeles — along with their respective teams, discussed doing a one-time only live performance of Promises. The Hollywood Bowl was selected as the venue, and Shepherd booked a flight to Los Angeles to meet with Sanders and make plans. Then, the week Shepherd was supposed to get on the plane, Sanders died, passing away on Sept. 24, 2022 at the age of 81. A cause of death was not given.
“So it was very much a long period of of quiet,” Shepherd says of what happened next. “Then conversations about doing it started to get bounced around again… It took me awhile to warm up to the idea.”
But Shepherd did, eventually, warm. So tomorrow (Sept. 20), almost a year to the day after Sanders’ passing, Shepherd will perform the first and likely only live performance of Promises at the Hollywood Bowl.
Speaking to Billboard on the phone from the Burbank studio hosting rehearsals for the show, Shepherd — enthusiastic, thoughtful and completely affable in conversation — allows that doing it without Sanders being around to give it his blessing “feels a little heavy for me. I haven’t vocalized it, I don’t even think I fully understand it. It’s not a normal thing for a musician to collaborate on a project with someone, and that person is no longer around.”
Without the mythic figure at the center of the project, Shepherd has instead assembled a sort of musical league of legends formed from friends, family and frequent collaborators.
Clearly the most crucial element in designing the performance was figuring out who would play Sanders’ part. Luckily, this answer was also obviou:. British saxophonist Shabaka Hutchings is a mutual friend of Sanders and Shepherd’s, who played in Shepherd’s first band and is a person who, Shepherd says, “Pharoah was a great admirer of.” While there’s demand to tour Promises, Shepherd says it simply isn’t possible, given that Hutchings is planning to put down his sax to focus on the flute shortly after the show.
Also in the band: electronic artist Kara-Lis Coverdale, “who every time I hear her play is just the most innovative, interesting electronic music I’ve heard in in my life.” Hinako Omori — “another amazing composer I’ve known for years in London” — will play the celesta. John Escreet, “one of the greatest pianists I’ve ever heard” will keyboard and synthesizer. Jeffrey Makinson, the organist at the U.K.’s towering Lincoln Cathedral and also Shepherds’ brother-in-law, will play an electric organ. Lara Serafin, who transcribed the previously unwritten down Promises into sheet music and “knows the piece better than anyone on a forensic level” will play electronics. Four Tet and Caribou — frequent Floating Points collaborators and also Shepherds’ “bezzie mates,” will play piano and electronics, respectively.
“They get the record because they were there when I was mixing it,” Shepherd says of these two producers and pals. “They were really part of the whole process of it all coming together — and they know me and I know them, and I know how they play.”
The show will be conducted by Los Angeles favorite Miguel Atwood Ferguson, who will guide the band, members of the L.A. Studio Symphony String Orchestra and special guests the Sun Ra Arkestra, with whom Sanders played with throughout his career.
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Surveying the gear laid out in the rehearsal space, Shepherd says Promises is, in a way, quite simple, rooted in four looping chords. “On a technical level, everyone can play their parts.”
As such, rehearsals are more about maintaining morale while also getting to the essence of what makes the piece “kind of magical, I guess,” says Shepherd. “That’s something I’ve got to find again from the beginning.” When asked if he knows how he’s going to do that, he answers, “No, I don’t,” with a laugh.
But then Shepherd, who also has a PhD in neuroscience and epigenetics and first connected with Sanders after Sanders heard his smart, spacial 2015 electronic album Elaenia, weighs the question for a minute. He returns to the recording sessions with Sanders, when Sanders would request that they just sit back and listen to the music.
“That sort of calmness and listening more intently is something I need to try and impart on [this] big group by sort of saying, ‘We need to slow it all down, we need to not feel like this is tedious or not getting anywhere, because it is getting somewhere, it’s just that we’ve got to give our patience to this project as well,’” he relates. “That’s something Pharoah taught me, definitely, patience in listening.”
(He adds that, in his own fast-paced fervor, he recorded enough music with Sanders to make another two albums — but says there is no plans to complete or release these projects. Sanders’ 1977 album Pharoah was re-released this week via Luaka Bop.)
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Given the mysterious, ineffable nature of Promises‘ magic, I ask Shepherd how he’ll know if the show was a success. He thinks about it, then refers to the album’s “Movement 8,” which closes with a minute of silence before the orchestra comes back in for the climax.
“That’s going to be a pinnacle moment for me — if that silence is really silent in the Bowl, and all you hear is the noise of some of the stage gear and buzzing through the speakers,” he shares. “If I’ve gotten a little corner of this noisey-ass American city just to be quiet, and ten or twelve or fifteen thousand people are sitting there together quietly because the previous 40 minutes of music has just brought them to this place… I would feel that’s a big moment.”
One can argue that having people sitting in slowed-down stillness would be what Sanders would have wanted to happen, too.
Eric Prydz is bringing his lauded HOLO show to New York City, with three performances happening Nov. 22, 24 and 25 at a yet-to-be-announced warehouse location in Brooklyn. Happening the days prior to and after Thanksgiving, each of these shows will offer a different musical performance. Explore Explore See latest videos, charts and news See […]
Before their 1995 debut album Exit Planet Dust made them stars, The Chemical Brothers demonstrated why they were worth paying attention to with a knockout Essential Mix for BBC Radio.
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Hosted by Pete Tong and originally aired in March of 1995 — two years into the existence of the still ongoing Essential Mix series — the two-hour mix aired months before the album’s June release and now serves as a document of the rave sound then taking over the Brothers’ native U.K. and beyond.
Chemical Brothers fans can revisit this moment in dance history with the mix, which has been made available by BBC Sounds for the next month and a half.
An amalgamation of acid house, breaks, funk, hip-hop and ’90s dance classics, the mix features tracks by Craig Mack & The Notorious B.I.G., Bobby J, Beastie Boys, Josh Wink, The Beatles and, of course, The Chemical Brothers themselves. This mix marked the first of myriad times the pair delivered a Essential Mix for the series.
This re-release comes in conjunction with the Brothers’ latest album For That Beautiful Feeling, their tenth studio LP released September 8 via Republic Records. In an interview with Billboard about the album, the pair — Tom Rowlands and Ed Simons — discussed their new work, the state of the world, touring and their legacy, with Rowlands noting that “Our friendship is at the heart of it. That’s the thing that has enabled us.”
“Without being too trite, there’s a chemistry between us,” added Simons. “We’ve just grown up together. We know what makes each other tick, what makes each other upset… We like each other, it’s as simple as that.”
The Chemical Brothers will release a career retrospective book, Paused In Cosmic Reflection, on October 26.
Listen to The Chemical Brothers’ Essential Mix here.
This week in dance music: Kah-Lo wrote about the sometimes rocky path that led to the release of her debut album, Calvin Harris got hitched, we spoke with Peggy Gou about her viral hit “It Goes Like (Nanana),” Alesso signed with CAA, Gou signed with WME, on the 10-year anniversary of Avicii’s True we talked to the label exec who signed the album, and Splash House shared nine hours worth of sets from its August editions.
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The week marks some big releases as well. These are the best new dance tracks of the week.
RL Grime, Play
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The Label: Sable Valley
The Spiel: RL Grime returns with a mic drop of a new project, his third LP PLAY. His first album since 2019, PLAY is actually made up of three mini-albums: APEX, GRID and RUSH. Each contains seven tracks highlighting different sound styles, with APEX delivering the same peak-time body-pummeling bass we’ve known and loved the producer (born Henry Steinway) for since the Void days; GRID being comprised largely of slick, smart collabs with artists including 070 Shake and Baauer; and RUSH delving into more experimental “headphones” music that demonstrate the producer’s efficacy with what is for him a newer type of sound. RL Grime will tour the album starting in October, with 17 dates across the U.S. and Canada.
The Artist Says: “Currently sitting in a park reflecting on the last few years and wanted to get some random thoughts down,” the producer wrote this week on Instagram. “From feeling completely stuck and sitting at home with no drive to make music whatsoever, to where we are today, hours away from releasing my third album is something I’m still trying to wrap my head around. It’s hard not to get caught up in the relentless and ever impending content/virality race of the current music industry .. for a long time it weighed down on my creativity and ultimately pushed me away from engaging at all with social media. thankfully this album process set me on a trajectory to regain my confidence not only as a producer but more importantly as a person…want to extended an eternal thank you to everyone involved in this project.”
The Vibe: Three to choose from
TSHA, Ellie Goulding & Gregory Porter, “Somebody”
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The Label: Ninja Tune
The Spiel: TSHA checks in with a somber but resolute, and also resonant, collab with Ellie Goulding and Grammy-winning soul singer Gregory Porter. Over the London producer’s shuffling, tinny beat, Goulding references post-pandemic anxieties in singing “Feelin’ older than my years/ But ain’t it so when you’ve been staying home?” with her genuinely contemplative-sounding delivery juxtaposed with Porter’s earnest plea that “I really need somebody.”
The Artist Says: “The idea for this collaboration was sparked by Ellie sliding into my DM’s last year to reach out about a session. I of course jumped at the opportunity in a heartbeat – she’s someone that I’ve admired and respected for a long time, so to have the opportunity to work together was a complete no brainer for me. It’s been an absolute pleasure working together on ‘Somebody’, Ellie’s a real sweetheart and I’m so pleased with how the track has come together. The icing on the cake is the vocals that Gregory Porter has added, which for me really elevate the track and add another dimension to the music. Having a living legend like Gregory featuring on my music is a huge milestone moment for me.“
The Vibe: Lonely and pretty
Camelphat, Spiritual Milk
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The Label: When Stars Align
The Spiel: The Liverpool duo, Dave Whelan and Mike Di Scala, have always been adept at making music that’s simultaneously deep, complex and pristinely produced, and that fingerprint is all over their sophomore album, Spiritual Milk. Out via the pair’s own When Stars Align label, the 16-track LP features loads of guests, including Kölsch, Delilah Montague, Shimza, Jake Bugg, London Grammar and Anyma, who all bring different moods to an album that nonetheless feels cohesive and fundamentally Camelphat.
The Artists Say: “We’ve felt a lot less pressure delivering this record possibly due to the fact it’s on our label, but also we’re at a point in our career where we can possibly afford to be more expressive and less fearful about what other people think,” the duo say in a joint statement. “It has definitely come from the heart and feels honest both as writers and musicians. We’ve had fun with it, we’ve made music less with the dance floor in mind and more with our emotions. The whole thing came together surprisingly very easily.”
The Vibe: Raw, whole and yes, in moments kind of creamy
Diplo & Walker & Royce Feat. Channel Tres, “Diamond Therapy”
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The Label: Higher Ground
The Spiel: “See me as a ticket to foreign lands, I’m the pathway,” Channel Tres beckons on “Diamond Therapy,” three minutes of pure uncut tech house from Diplo and Walker & Royce. Together, the production trio lay a thumping, sometimes spare foundation for Tres to deliver lyrics about “diamond therapy, carat clarity” in his signature purr, with the hypnotic build leading to a crescendo of thick synth.
The Vibe: An actual gem
Chris Lake & Aluna, “More Baby”
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The Label: Astralwerks/Black Book Records
The Spiel: We know Chris Lake and Aluna work well together, with their recently released “Beggin’” currently sitting at No. 11 on Dance Mix Show/Airplay. Today, the duo double down with “More Baby,” which Lake previewed during his massive b2b set with FISHER at Coachella this past April, and on which Aluna repeats the titular demand over a bouncy, elastic track co-produced by her, Lake and the duo Parisi, known for their work with Swedish House Mafia, Fred Again… and Black Eyed Peas.
The Vibe: Yes please, more please
Most 10-year-olds don’t get poolside bacchanals for their birthday, but Splash House celebrated a decade of music, revelry and pool floaties with a pair of back-to-back bashes last month in Palm Springs, California, for their decade celebration. Explore See latest videos, charts and news See latest videos, charts and news The poolside dance/electronic festival hosted […]
Peggy Gou has expanded her WME representation and is now globally represented by the agency. Based in Berlin, Gou’s 2023 tour schedule has included EDC Mexico, Sónar Barcelona, KappaFuturFestival, Lollapalooza Stockholm, Electric Castle, Creamfields North and ARC Music Festival. Upcoming plays include Australia’s Beyond The Valley and Wildlands festivals. She’s also played events including Primavera, […]
Per Sundin had seen the future.
Then the President of Universal Music Nordic, Sundin was invited to Ibiza to see Swedish House Mafia play their 2008 residency at Pacha.
“It was like, ‘When are they going on stage? Half past two? In the morning? Oh my god,’” recalls Sundin, who at this time was not yet fully steeped in dance music’s late-night culture. At Pacha he ventured onto the dancefloor amidst a massive crowd “fist-pumping towards the DJ booth.” It was then he knew: “This is the future of pop.”
Back in Stockholm, Sundin looked around for his own dance act to sign, eventually connecting with a young Swedish producer then going by Tim Berg, along with the artist’s manager, Ash Pournouri. Sundin signed the artist’s 2010 debut single, “Seek Bromance.” The label and the producer, who was by then going by Avicii, followed that with 2012’s “Fade Into Darkness” — and then, of course, the era-defining global phenomenon that was “Levels.”
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But the biggest success was yet to come.
Avicii’s debut album, True, came out on September 13, 2013. By its release date, it was already soaring on the wings of its lead single “Wake Me Up,” the first-ever country/EDM hybrid to cross over to top 40, which as of today has 1.18 billion official on-demand U.S. streams, according to Luminate. The song reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October of 2013, marking what would be the highest-charting song of Avicii’s career, and his only top 10 hit. It also spent 26 weeks at No. 1 on the Hot Dance/Electronic Songs chart, and this past June, became the RIAA’s highest certified dance song.
Dance music purists may have hated the track — when “Wake Me Up” was mentioned at a business lunch in 2013, one dance music publicist put her finger in her mouth and pretended to vomit — but anyone with ears had to admit it was catchy. True was also a phenomenon: With it, Avicii bucked the trend of EDM artists only releasing singles, instead presenting a cohesive body of work that bore surprising country/bluegrass influences, which were at first misunderstood, but ultimately distinguished him as an innovator and world class creative.
The album currently has two billion total on-demand official U.S. streams, according to Luminate. It reached No. 5 on the Billboard 200 in October of 2013 and spent eight weeks at No. 1 on Top Dance/Electronic Albums. Today (Sept. 13) marks the ten-year anniversary of True, which will be celebrated with never-before-released footage of the album’s production, released on the Avicii social media accounts over the next month.
Sundin — now the CEO of Pophouse, which purchased 75% of Avicii’s recording and publishing catalog in 2022 — here recalls the album’s origins to Billboard, along with the excitement for it within Universal, and how an unlicensed Soundcloud mix helped shift hatred for the LP into global acclaim.
Tell me about the earliest phases of the album.
[“Levels”] really moved my career internationally and inside Universal. At that time when I came into [the dance world], everyone did instrumentals beats, and then they tested that on the audience. If the audience liked it, they called in a topliner or vocalist to write the lyrics, and tried different verses and different topliners.
But Tim was like, ‘I want to be an artist. I don’t want to do one song instrumentals and this [testing] process. I want to do an album.” I said “You know, this is dance music. You don’t do albums.”
But he told me that they were already working on it — so I went to Tim’s studio, which was just a five minutes walk from Universal’s Stockholm office — and they played me me “Wake Me Up.” This was in February of 2013.
What did you think when you heard it?
I tried to hold back, because if I say, “It’s fantastic,” then Ash would increase the price for the advance, so I had to hold back everything. I was like, “Yeah, this could work.”
That was the only song they played me. I went back to the office and I called my superiors — because this was above my pay grade, because he asked for a lot of millions for this album — and talked about it. We did so well with “Levels,” and that really was a breakthrough for us, for me and for Universal Music Sweden, because that really ignited interest around the world for EDM music. So when this album was in place, we went all in on it and just did everything we could [for it].
So you first hear “Wake Me Up” in February, and then a month later the album is being debuted at Ultra Music Festival in Miami. Famously, that show bombed. What was it was like being there?
I invited people from all over the world to Ultra Music Festival. There, Avicii decided together with his management to premiere the album — with the original songwriters and topliners he worked with on the album.
So he first played an approximately 45-minutes set of a traditional Avicii concert. Then, for the audience it was like a changeover, like a new act coming on. The DJ booth was moved to the right of the stage, and then came a guy who started singing “Wake Me Up.” For me, it was obvious, because I love the track. But for the audience, it was a disaster. They hated it.
Then Dan Tyminski did “Hey Brother,” and no one understood. They wanted traditional Avicii songs with big drops, and to just able to dance in their party mode, if I say so. So online it was terrible, like, “Rest in peace Avicii’s career.” It was really, really tough for him. He was devastated. He was like, “Am I wrong? Have I done something bad?” He just really didn’t understand the reactions.
What was that moment like for you?
I remember Andrew Kronfeld, who still is the Executive Vice President of Universal Music, was standing there with me and said, “Don’t worry, this is a fantastic album. It was fantastic yesterday, it will be fantastic tomorrow.”
Did the marketing plan for True change at all, after what happened at Ultra?
Yes. What happened was that… we knew the music was great, but we couldn’t release it, because “Wake Me Up” was supposed to be out in mid-June. We couldn’t play anything until that. Then Ash said, “Maybe we can do a remix of it and put it out on SoundCloud.” And I said, “You can’t do that, because that’s not legal.”
Ash said, “But maybe if I do it…” And I was like, “I’m not involved in this, but yes, do it. Just put the mix together.” Avicii remixed all 10 songs from the album and put a mix on SoundCloud. You can still find it there. It’s a fantastic. The reactions in the comments comments — everyone was like, “This is really good.” “Why did people say this was bad? This is fantastic.” I have goosebumps talking about it again, because it was like, “Oh my god, this is really happening.”
That must’ve been exciting.
It created a hype on SoundCloud. Ash could do it, but we [at Universal] couldn’t, because it was licensed to us. [At that time] they didn’t have a deal for for releasing music on SoundCloud that was under contract. So that’s why I was reluctant to do it. If it went wrong … we couldn’t really handle it. But again, I said, “OK, do it.” And they did.
That’s how it took off. That’s how the other conversation changed from being brutally tough and hateful to love for this True album.
Was it always obvious that “Wake Me Up” would be the lead single?
Yes, it was obvious. It wasn’t even a discussion. “Hey Brother” is a little bit too country, so that wasn’t it. “Addicted To You” was one that was discussed. In hindsight, you can always say, “This is what we believed in the whole time.” And, you know, sometimes you lie about it to sound smart. But in this case, it was, “This is the single,” and it was from the beginning.
I was going to ask if this album felt like a business risk within Universal, given the country influences, but it sounds like there was a lot of goodwill around it.
Yeah. Everyone that heard it said, “This is going to be sensational,” because there were so many singles on it. We could work for a long, long time on it… We believed then at Universal Music that EDM was the new big wave. And it was, with Swedish House Mafia and Tiësto and David Guetta and Calvin Harris. It was just, bang.
Was there anything you’d have wanted to change about the album?
One sad thing is that my favorite song on the album was “Heart on My Sleeve” with Imagine Dragons. The interesting thing is that Ash, and I think this is quite clever, didn’t want to have any features on the on the album. Every other EDM artist had “featuring whoever” on the on the songs. Everyone did at this time.
But Ash decided no one could be featured — because if someone like Imagine Dragons gets featured, then it’s going to be “Imagine Dragons featuring Avicii.” If you take all that away, then it’s just an Avicii song, and Avicii is the artist. So when radio station played the song, it’s Avicii.
So that was a negotiation with Imagine Dragons. And [the band] said, “If we don’t get our full credits, you’re not going to get us on the album.” That’s why the song was taken off and why [that track] is an instrumental on the album. It was ready to go. It was recorded.
Then when we did the [posthumous] Tim album, we contacted Imagine Dragons and said, “You will get credit; we really want you to be part of this.”
Was there a feeling of anticipation within Universal around the album of like, “Wait until they hear this”?
Yes. That’s why it was such a crazy feeling when we were at Ultra. I had drink tables paid for. I was spending a lot of money to have everyone from Universal there: marketing directors, managing directors. I played the music the day before the festival, and they loved it.
So it was a shock, because we believed this was going to be so good, and everyone that heard it said it was fantastic … Maybe it was badly presented from stage, so people didn’t understand. It was not communicated that this is what they were going to do … It was a combination of people wanting to party to hit songs they’d heard before and not good presenting from stage. There could have been a voiceover with someone saying, “And now ladies and gentlemen, you’re going to hear the new album from Avicii.” And that wasn’t done. Was I shocked about it? Yes, I was.
So you’re in the VIP section at Ultra with bottle service and all the business people — what’s the mood?
You question yourself. “Am I totally getting this wrong?” “Am I reading in the wrong way?”
I’d always considered that moment for Tim and everybody on stage, but I hadn’t considered your perspective.
No one cares about the record execs. [Laughs.] But it was worse for Tim, of course. He was devastated. He went to his parents, I think it was in Los Angeles, and [his father] Klas told me that he was just shocked.
But it all turns itself around rather quickly, and obviously the album becomes a massive hit. At what point do you start celebrating?
Everywhere in the world, you heard “Wake Me Up” on the radio, but you never celebrate. That’s the crazy thing about being in the music business — you can celebrate when you give an artist a plaque or whatever it is, but then you’re already onto “OK, what’s next?”
Do you think Tim felt that pressure of “what’s next?”
I never talked to him about exactly that. But he was just — he was a very, very good igniter when it came to creating music. When he unfortunately died too early, if you look at sketches, demos and songs on his hard drive, he was close to 100 [projects]. He loved to study, loved to work with other people.
When he when he landed in Oman [editors note: Avicii died by suicide in Muscat, Oman on April 20, 2018], we had a conference call and talked about the music. He was so in a positive mode. “This is what we’re going to do, and please book a studio in [Kenya]; I want to work with people there, and then I want to go to New Hampshire, then l want to go to London.” He just wanted just to have studio time, he loved to be in the studio and do his thing. So yeah, so he was looking forward.
10 years on, what do you think True‘s legacy is?
It’s hard for me to say. Billboard did a thing about the 100 biggest moments of EDM, and the number one was Tim’s career. I just…I get emotional because it’s… [a pause while he tears up, then collects himself], because what we accomplished during this short period of time, it’s just unbelievable.
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