Better Living through The Chemical Brothers

We've got chemistry

The Chemical Brothers are a duo I had stopped listening to for many years. I had, I thought, just out-grown their first three albums: Exit Planet Dust, Dig Your Own Hole, and Surrender. Stepping outside my home and looking up at the waning quarter moon on this past Friday morning, the relatively high humidity, the green of the tree leaves, the quiet of the dawning day, and the happiness associated with Fridays generally, had me returning to the days of being eighteen and nineteen years old.

Since those days, I’ve looked back on my adolescence with regrets. Many happy days at the time, but in retrospect, too many big mistakes and missed opportunities. Friday morning, I felt—for the first time—at peace with those years. I was able to dwell in the peace and easy joy of memories of happy times. As I nearly always do, I donned headphones and listened to music, and, Friday morning, it was a continuation from the previous evening, of listening to Daft Punk’s debut album, Homework (1997), followed by The Chemical Brothers. For I had just then found out they’d made an album just last year, For That Beautiful Feeling (2023), and I was taken away by it. I added in some tracks from their first two albums, and I enjoyed them. I had not out-grown them. Something else had happened. They were tinged with regrets for me. Friday morning, I was not aware of those regrets, only of their sudden absence.

I hope you found some peace, in retrospect at least, during the last three days. It certainly doesn’t have to have been with 1990s electronica!

Happy listening!