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god, the ignorance is astounding.
Chemical Breaks was a short-lived music genre that, as far as I can tell, existed almost exclusively in the western United States from about 94-97, during the height of the US outdoor rave boom (after that point, mostly everything--music, artists, and ravers--moved indoors to clubs and government-sanctioned dance halls). Its labels and artists were mostly from Los Angeles and San Francisco, and the music was popular at huge outdoor desert gatherings, alongside a similar US invention at the time, Desert Trance (ie: Deepsky, Joshua Ryan, Christopher Lawrence, Electric Skychurch), a kind of goa/anthem trance hybrid that would've been successful if the US trance scene hadn't been completely flattened by the anthemic euro juggernaught in 99, but I digress.
Chemical breaks was so named because the music actually did sound chemical-like....in that it had squelching acid and chirping, sharp synthlines, with heavy reverb and staccato-like effects all over them. That's its signature style: the skip-skip-skippity-sk-sk-sk-skip-skipness of it. Very harsh and synthetic, unlike typical breaks of the time which were sounding heavy and bombastic. Hence the name: chemical breaks....though the name was probably more fitting of the style of the biggest artist to champion the genre: The Crystal Method. Although I personally feel that Uberzone - Bots is the quintessential chemical breaks track. The Bassbin Twins were another big artist. Moonshine released a whole bunch of comps back in the day, the most famous of which is John Kelley's "Funky Desert Breaks" which intended to capture the essence of the music of those legendary desert parties.
Big Beat doesn't actually sound anything like chemical breaks. It is foremost distinguishable by the (duh) Big Beat on the one. The Big, slamming bassdrum at the beginning of every measure. It also had instances of guitars, macho samples, and heavy, aggressive instrumentation, which is why it attracted a lot of hooligans and the frat crowd, who suddenly got into this new "electronica" thing. Artists of this style were Fatboyslim, Moby, and the Prodigy's Fat of the Land LP ("Smack My Bitch Up" is a perfect example of Big Beat behavior).
The Chemical Brothers do not make chemical breaks, and never did. Their first album is Big Beat through and through.
When Big Beat took off in England, quite a bit of chemical breaks producers, artists and DJs noticed the way the winds were blowing and jumped ship. Florida breaks actually has closer ties to electro and Miami bass than chemical breaks, but you can hear some chemical breaks influences here and there, if you listen closely enough. Icey is not a good example, though. Quite frankly, I'm not sure what a good example would be.
EBM is Electronic Body Music, an industrial genre that practically dates back to 1982, and features loud, spitting, buzzing synths. Think of the noize electricity makes or a noisy humm of a voltage box, and you get what sound it was aiming for (ie: Electronic, or Electric, Body Music...like the kind of music that electricutes the body and has you wiggling on the floor to it). It also has angry lyrics about 5 year plans and broken systems and defiance of authority. Popular artists are Front 242 and Frontline Assembly. Despite being still made, to some extent, EBM had its heyday in the late 80s, where it evolved into Belgian New Beat, Rave, and Trance (no, don't dispute this) and kind of slowly tapered off during the 90s. It has nothing to do with big beat or chemical breaks, and never did.
Last edited by Ishkur on Dec-19-2005 at 05:05
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