The Chemical Brothers are back with 'No Geography', and it's a mystery and revelation!

For those familiar with the Marvel comics universe, Chemical Brothers’s ninth studio album 'No Geography' is the tape that, I imagine, Thanos would be playing after snatching away Peter Quill’s Walkman, and before proceeding to save half of the universe — by destroying the other half. Tom Rowland and Ed Simons return as the Brothers Chemical after four years to conjure up a planetary soundscape. For older ears, they tap much of their early '90s acid-soul concoctions that made them stand out as EDM alchemists.

The deep funk in the bass lines of the opening track Eve of Destruction that follow “the robots have revolted”-type intro is joined by Norwegian singer Aurora taking on the character of an entropy-seeking, chaos-embracing goddess — in this case, with her tongue firmly in. Bango, which follows, continues this song’n’dance of the Apocalypse: “I won’t back down/ Give me my thunder”, until you realise that Aurora and the layers of music point to forceful defence, rather than anarchic destruction. The title track lovingly wraps a sample of ’70s poet Michael Brownstein reading his poem: “If you ever change your mind about leaving it all behind/Remember, remember, no geography”.

One can actually see a vast, wide landscape rushing by below as if projected by a bird or drone camera drench by synth. In Got to Keep On, the Brothers take the funk out, sampling Peter Brown’s 1978 hit 'Dance With Me'. These are downright disco beats, until we get to the song’s bridge, where we encounter a core reactor only to scamper-dance our way back to the life-affirming dancefloor again.




Gravity Drops has the rush and surge of 2002’s Star Guitar. But speed alone isn’t what drives this new track. The plunging of synths in the second half sounds like a pair of giant lungs breathing out not just breath but the stuff of life. The Universe Sent Me has Aurora back, this time her voice shaped into a melting icicle: “I cave in/ I cave in”. It isn’t about breaking down here, but about folding oneself in to protect.

We’ve Got To Try is vintage Chemicals — heaving, heavy, horizon-wards, with a round of acid-soul Pan Galactic Gargle Blasters in the belly. A swarm of locusts greet us in Free Yourself, as it samples another poet, Diane di Prima, whose lines have the dance and the dancer merging. MAH gets on down James Brown-style with 1970s disco experimenters El Coco a.k.a. W Michal Lewis and Laurin Rinder’s I’m Mad as Hell going through the sampling machine: “I’m mad as hell/ I ain’t gonna take it no more”. Broken patience is one block rockin’ beat.

'No Geography' ends peacefully, with 'Catch Me I’m Falling', not in desolation, but with an urge to loop back to the beginning of the album. How the Chemical Brothers conjure up this giant, moving, living soundscape is as much a mystery as it is a revelation. Of bucolic-studio joy.