Exit Planet Dust - The Chemical Brothers

“Exit Planet Dust” in 1995 heralded the birth of “Big Beat Techno.” A subgenre of electronica/dance music characterized by it broad, almost bombastic and “in your face” hook laden high energy music. All pigeon hole labeling aside, this album successfully bridged the gap between dance/techno/house/electronica and the rock/pop/indie audience effectively bringing techno and dance music to the masses in a way that never happened before.

First coming together in the “Madchester” era of the British Rave scene, Tom & Ed began their career as The Dust Brothers (in homage to the producers of another landmark album, “Paul’s Boutique”) performing in the rabid club scene and progressing on to remixes for more established indie and alternative artists like Primal Scream, The Charlatans and The Prodigy. In these early days, they inadvertently tapped into what would become their signature sound; a meeting between house influenced psychedelic techno and hook heavy indie pop/rock. At the time, their DJ and remixing style hit a perfect niche in the market. The salad days of the infamous Hacienda nightclub were transitioning away from the indie dance band days epitomized by New Order, through the short lived style of “baggy”, and now into the psychedelic-techno laden music of characterized by Paul Oakenfeld and his crew. But instead of hard-grinding of the gears away from the formalities of songwriting and diving headfirst into the abstractions of pure house, The Chemical Brothers proved you could do both. They brought trippy electronic effects and high energy, polyrhythmic techno flair to high profile bands with already established signature sounds, hooks and cult’s of personality. The result was artists you knew from the radio now in a style with new infectious and irresistible dance energy.

Giving up The Dust Brothers moniker for legal reasons, and taking on The Chemical Brothers name, they took the next leap of creativity with a gesture that moved them the famous DJ category, to Artists in the Own Right. Quite a jump. Music critics and fans alike were long divided and firmly entrenched in their camps. You either liked techno, or you liked rock. There was no middle ground. A few DJs had made the leap to “Artists in Their Own Right”, but none had done so and successfully bridged the two genres. Even their previously name-checked idols The Beastie Boys, despite their creativity, seemed to be only able to live in one world at a time as they moved from style to style in their successive albums. But the manifesto was clear in the opening sample of Exit Planet Dust: “the Brothers’ gonna work it out.”

But enough music history, what about the music? What is it about the music on this record that’s so special? Technically, there’s little new to be found here. Indeed from the opening sample, to the following sounds and beats that get folded into “Leave Home” The Chemicals seem to be purposefully retro, foregoing the synthetic sounds and textures of modern techno for old school funk guitar and sonically fat “real drum” percussion loops. Like the metaphoric cover photo of the album with its late 70s imagery, within the first 2 minutes of the first song, you are aware that this is not a typical techno album, but instead music that is built upon the relics of a different age, a different style. Now you could belabor the point that this return/recycling and reinventing of a fetishized past is an artistic move based in whatever post-modernist theory you embrace, but music here kind of insists that you shut your brain off in lieu of a more visceral response. Throughout the rest of the album, the Ed and Tom continue to resurrect old samples from funk, rock, and indie sources in a sort of Proustian pastiche that simultaneously resonates with the listener as both a historian of music, as well as a love of pure raw sound in two ways: in the selection of the sample itself as well as the more digital effect treatment they apply to the sample as they update it. This is really the root of The Chemical Brother’s treatment of samples that falls into two basic categories on this record: Selection and Treatment.

First and foremost is the selection of the sample. Instead of following the methods of the dominant DJ scene of hoarding an esoteric record collection of obscure beats and hermetically sealed creativity loops of records made by DJs for DJs, they followed the “Paul’s Boutique” method of selecting samples that were both recognizable to a large audience, and focusing on the singular, bombastic and sometimes dominant HOOK of a song. Where the House DJ selected samples based on their intricacy and cleverness when juxtaposed against other samples and rhythms, the Samples here are based on their ability to stand alone; and ultimately how remarkable they are as pure sound isolated from the context of their source. The listener can almost imagine Tom and Ed in their bedrooms sifting through each other’s record collection and picking out “the coolest parts” of their favorite songs. Not only a stylistic innovation, this approach of building a techno song around building blocks gleaned from recognizable and explicitly rock/indie sources actually brought a new audience together, as listeners who favored British Indie bands over techno, no had a touch stone in the abstract audio soup of house music – the recognizable sample.

Of second but equal importance to a Chemical Brothers’ sample is the treatment, or the effect processing they apply to the source material. Often grabbing a snippet of a hook that was in the middle of its musical phrase, they isolated the elements of the hook into a more abstract sonic flourish, forcing the listener to hear the thick analogue and poly-tonal qualities of guitar based samples. Then sequencing the sample itself into a tightly rhythmic loop they push that sonic flourish to the limit between hook and texture. Taking a cue from the sonic indulgence of the so called “shoegazer” movement (and even sampling them directly) the samples themselves form a wall of sound which on one level embody a driving energetic and visceral rhythm, while simultaneously carrying a sonic richness that rewards close listening. It’s not until this framework is established in the song that The Chemical Brothers add in the more traditional techniques of the DJ genre utilizing digital effects and sequencers to layer in atmospheric effects and more traditional techno/dance motifs. The innovation here allows the songs on Exit Planet Dust to sound very analogue and rich in texture, while still using the crisp exacting digital techniques of modern electronica. For example the slow pan of the bucket flange over the tightly wound funk guitar sample of “Chemical Beats” takes away the harsh repetitive edge of the sample itself and allows the listener to wallow in the pure sound. Furthermore, the slow filter pan application to their sample repertoire helped to blend the old school analogue sample sound with the slick new 303, and modern sequencer driven elements of the compositions.

Finally, The Chemical Brothers bring to Exit Planet Dust the element that had for so long been truly lacking in electronic/techno music: Songwriting. Raised on the indie band standards of the 80s and 90s, Tom and Ed didn’t forget their roots – these songs have structure. Unlike the long sonic arc’s of a Paul Oakenfeld album or a typical house groove where one song is often indistinguishable from the next in a DJs set, the songs of Exit Planet Dust seem to have a verse/chorus/bridge structure similar to pop and rock. Indeed tracks such as “Life Is Sweet” or “Alive Alone” go so far as to even employ vocals and true songwriting (anathema to the faceless manifesto of modern techno). Yet, these songs don’t need vocals to feel like cohesively structured songs. The dynamics of compositional choices made as they weave samples and rhythms together follow the familiar “8-bar blues” format of traditional rock songwriting where the dynamic grouping of samples, melodies, rhythms follow predictable groupings within the meter of the songs. Take as an example again “Leave Home”: the samples that comprise the main groove of the song are introduced in successive groupings of 4, after each repetition of 4; the next sample is introduced, and so on, until the main groove is established. They let this main groove ride in the center of the composition on another multiple of 4, before breaking it entirely in a dynamic counterpoint introducing the next section of the song. This is a major departure from the slow sonic progressions of traditional house where sounds and textures gradually transform themselves over an interminably long stretch of rhythm, where the only major dynamic change is the infamous “drop the base” move: removing either the high end or low end of a groove for a period to highlight an intricacy of the remaining textures, only to then experience the rush of the return of the main beat to the groove a few bars later.

This is not to say The Chemical Brothers don’t indulge in stereotypical DJ moves. The album is full of them. But the dynamic shifts, filter pans and space age sound effects are less the foundation of the song, as they are the flourish and ornament over a song framework based on a very different approach

Ultimately, Exit Planet Dust is a landmark album because it exists as that juncture between genres. It is that point where the house/techno genre embraces pop and rock. It does so without sacrificing the energy and aesthetic of electronic music, but still satisfies the ear of an audience that demands more structured musical genre. And like all great landmarks, it inspired a legion of followers, popular radio play, and even commercial appropriation where the sound itself became symbolic of an energetic atmosphere and became and The Chemical Brothers themselves became sampled as the signature sound of Budweiser commercials in 2007.