For That Beautiful Feeling (XDUST12)

[hubie]

Mildred-arm approved?! Love the tatoo!

Cheers! My wife has George on her arm too. We both got George & Mildred's personal approval  

[Stefan]

Cheers! My wife has George on her arm too. We both got George & Mildred's personal approval

Oh that's awesome!

[Stefan]

I'm gonna suggest that someone did something very naughty here. They pretended to be the Chems and whacked the Chems music up on Bandcamp for some quick $$$ !
This would explain why, once the extended mix of Skipping Like A Stone got withdrawn from Beatport & BeatSource, it remained up on that Bandcamp page. Until now.

Wow, that would be wild. I bought may tracks there, since the lossless B-Sides and standalone tracks aren't exactly easy to find.

[M_O_N_O]

Goodbye. What a track
It feels like this could be the best Chems album in a LONG time.
Too bad my order from the UK store only shipped yesterday and won't arrive before mid/end next week

[actionjackson780]

On my third listen today and still forming opinions. First thoughts, in no particular order, are:

- "Feels Like I Am Dreaming" is an absolute banger. It works as well in its place on the album as in the live set. I'm glad they gave it nearly 7 minutes to really breathe
- "Fountains" and "Magic Wand" need more time to grow on me; they are a bit of a low point at the moment
- "The Weight"... holy f! So good and so heavy (pun intended)
- Kind of wish "Intro" was the title track and fleshed out more, and "FTBF" proper was extended as a kind of reprise? Unsure about this, I could take about 4 minutes more of both haha
- I wish every song was longer

[GLAKO-FAHN]

after my usual self-imposed pre-album chemical-deprivation..holy shit. this album is a banger. everything makes so much sense now that it all flows together.

and my goodness, does it flow together. feels like live transitions from 20+ years ago.

off the top of my head..

• return of Soul, Psychedelia, and Big Beats
• funny to me that i also have a view opposite to Ben_j. i was looking forward to these big tunes we heard in DJ sets and live, but it turns out what i really wanted was the rest of the album: fountains thru the weight, the synths shining thru on the studio version of goodbye, and the title track
• damn, i really do like fountains thru the weight. randomly, i put on Lamb's 1996 Lamb last night. hello?
• nobody told me i should be waiting for tracks from EPD era to be finished and released in 2023, what the hell? it's Christmas-in-September
• now that we have a proper studio version, i've only just noticed that feels like i am dreaming is the latest cover of tomorrow never knows
• the album version of darkness makes a lot sense to me

[mesamm99]

So any chance listening to "I want to know"?

I'll know this evening. Surprisingly the album was delivered to my house today... all the way from Japan... they pre-sent it so it would reach on release day.

I'm at the office now and can't wait to get out of here to listen to it all.

[nekoland]

A really nice interview
https://variety.com/2023/music/features/chemical-brothers-tom-rowlands-ed-simons-for-that-beautiful-feeling-1235711215/

[Biff]

Biff's Micro Mini Album Observations/Review:

Spoiler

Intro: Since we have heard the ending track of this album, my immediate thoughts were: THIS ALBUM IS A DONUT! Its end starts it back to the beginning with the same vocals. It's a circular album, not unlike J. Dilla's "Donuts"

Live Again: We all know and love. I'm still missing the live/extended version with the heavy bass at the beginning, but I begrudgingly agree that it's a good call not to have it on the album for Live Again to fade in.

No Reason: Also known and loved. By the end of this track I was experiencing the same confusion I felt when Come With Us came out (or as it was called in the early aughts, "leaked"): we had heard It Began in Afrika and Galaxy Bounce (thanks Tomb Raider soundtrack!) for months, so the segues on the album really threw me for a loop, and that's what happened here. I really dig/dug the bonus beats at the end.

Goodbye: The new "____ is godlike" IMHO. I was worried the album version might be tamer, but it still has that same raw energy. The vocals are beautiful and the main synth melody gives me goosebumps more than my office's air conditioning.

Fountains: Did we establish who this vocalist is? I'm bad at keeping up in the forum over the last few years, and so many insightful things have been found. It sounds like the same person that's been on many chems tracks over the years such as the vocal harmonies on WATN and Hanna's Theme. Makes me nostalgic for PTB B-sides and sounds like Tame Impala remixed by the Neptunes in the style of "Frontin'". The Nile Rogers-esq guitar and solos are my favorite parts.

Magic Wand: Great sample and extremely catchy love letter to their earlier work, especially the remixes. It's interesting to hear a modern homage to this with how production has changed, as there is a much greater stereo image on the drums.

The Weight: Found my new mantra I'm going to use. The "watch it now" sounds kind of like Sammy making a return, maybe didn't get eaten? This and Magic Wand feel like siblings. They both manage to capture the a little bit of the sound of their early remixes, but make something very exciting and new. I really enjoy how the song builds starting at 2:10 into a wall of psychedelic sound.

Skipping Like A Stone: Also known and loved, no new segues that made me feel like an alarmed cat. As I said in the posting for this track when it was released, even though the extended version has a lot of exciting stuff going on, for the album's flow the length works great. See below.

Darkness That You Fear: I just rambled in the DTYF topic why I think this version is an improvement, but forgot to complement the percussion! But I like everything about this version.

Galaxy Bounce: Wait... wut da fuq? Apparently Spotify is trolling me while I wait on my LP to arrive?

Feels Like I'm Dreaming: Amazing track, it's like Escape Velocity's younger sibling that got in more trouble. Hope it's one they keep in live rotation for a long time. Around 5:30 it almost sounds like it's going to segue into Skipping Like A Stone. No, wait, just checked it's the same choir but now played half a step higher. So I'm going to further push my Skipping-Like-A-Stone-extended-version-was-an-ending-track conspiracy.

For That Beautiful Feeling: I think I mentioned elsewhere that I love this track. The melody evolves beautifully in a way that makes this track very emotionally powerful. Bonus star for liberal use of phaser effects. The ending has a nice fade out with the vocal repeating. Hey, we've gone full circle.

Overall: Probably not surprising to say I love it, but this album deserves praise even without fandom bias. It feels overall different than what I might've guess would come after No Geography, but that's why the Chems have been prolific and not perishable. The album feels has a lot of nice contrast in each track and overall; it's heavy and light. Halo's vocals over Live Again nicely sum it up. There's weight but then it's skipping like a stone, living and dreaming, etc. etc. I think how the songs are structured is excellent, feeling unpredictable yet intuitive-something most electronic music suffers from.

[GLAKO-FAHN]

damnit, 2 listens in. this thing is a rock album in disguise. the kind of pop music that just makes sense deep in my bones. it's like a beatles or pink floyd or david bowie or whoever record, wow

[GLAKO-FAHN]

Spoiler

Fountains: Did we establish who this vocalist is?

Overall: I think how the songs are structured is excellent, feeling unpredictable yet intuitive-something most electronic music suffers from.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Fountains: tom rowlands?

Overall: yeah i think this is exactly it. after my second listen and thinking about how it's an amalgamation of all the best pop records from a variety of genres, i checked out the wikipedia article. it has a quote from Damien Morris in a review for The Observer that nails it— "nonsense-free reaffirmation of the dance duo's greatest strength – making largely instrumental psychedelic house and techno somehow sound like pop music"

[Biff]

I was wondering if it might be Tom or a session vocalist. At the time Further was released, I was under the impression he had just started doing vocals.

[Wolkenkrabber]

It's either Tina Weymouth from Tom Tom Club or
it's Tom from Tom & Ed Club
(ok it's the latter, we established this somewhere on the forum I believe).

If we didn't know the title I think I would have nicknamed this "Tom's Tom Tom Club track". Though I kinda get the reference to Frontin' too.
And look! We've found someone who likes Fountains. Was bound to happen eventually.

[Stefan]

I don't know why we hide this behind spoiler tags?

Spoiler

The little leaflet mentions Tom Rowlands for the Fountains vocals, with backing by Halo Maud
Please log in to view this attachment.

[Biff]

I don't know why we hide this behind spoiler tags?

Spoiler

The little leaflet mentions Tom Rowlands for the Fountains vocals, with backing by Halo Maud
Please log in to view this attachment.

Spoiler

Just got my LP

Spoiler

and saw that too

[𝒥𝑅𝒮𝒵]

I'll know this evening. Surprisingly the album was delivered to my house today... all the way from Japan... they pre-sent it so it would reach on release day.

I'm at the office now and can't wait to get out of here to listen to it all.

Would be really thankful if you'll put the audio on google drive, or something so we could listen to it!

[GLAKO-FAHN]

apparently i need to get me my LP so i can pore over the notes in the sleeve

[Csar]

Ok, the personal listening journey has commenced.

[Joslyn]

I'll know this evening. Surprisingly the album was delivered to my house today... all the way from Japan... they pre-sent it so it would reach on release day.

I'm at the office now and can't wait to get out of here to listen to it all.

Oh nicely done Japan 🙏. Let us know how the packaging looks like. I waited out on buying the cd 😁

[ThePumisher]

I don't know why we hide this behind spoiler tags?

Because one [me] was stupid enough to think that preordering the album from the officialy webstore would allow me to listen to the record on release day - and i don't want to get spoiled with all of you brothers, sisters & siblings opinions of the tunes until i have listen to them by myself.



Talking about preordering: my package has left the store less than 12h ago... How can the official shop be that slow while others receive their parcel all the way from japan on release day?