2LP Red & Gold Vinyl, National Album Day 2024
Originally released in the summer of 1995, The Chemical Brothers’ debut album, Exit Planet Dust, remains a key record of the 1990s. Reaching No.9 in the UK, it introduced “big beat” music – as the club-filling mix of hip-hop and acid house had been christened – to a mainstream audience, helping to fuel its dominance on the British dance scene as the 20th century came to a close. Opening with ‘Leave Home’, the Chems’ debut single and a swift UK Top 20 hit, the album also features collaborations with folktronica icon Beth Orton, on closing cut ‘Alive Alone’, and Charlatans’ frontman, Tim Burgess, on the album’s second single, ‘Life is Sweet’, which took The Chemical Brothers back into the UK charts, hitting No.25 following its September 1995 release. Amid these standouts is a track that had already become a signature tune for the duo of Ed Simons and Tim Rowlands: ‘Chemical Beats’. Originally issued on the highly collectable Fourteenth Century Sky 12” EP – issued in 1994 under the Chems’ earlier name, The Dust Brothers – it had already become a club classic by the time of Exit Planet Dust’s release, and, 30 years on, it still sounds huge on this 140g red- and gold-coloured double-vinyl reissue.